


Eat You Up

by Neyiea



Series: Ravenous [2]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And also references to hunting/eating people which I hope is not a surprise at this point, Canon-Typical Violence, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Eldritch Abominations, Everyone has a good time but there are a whole lot of issues and poor choices, Horror Elements, I'mma just go ahead and tag, Is this an excuse to write about Bruce getting railed by monsters?, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Possessive Behavior, Stephen King's IT References, Underage Drinking, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:47:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23799475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: Grace promised to make sure he wouldn’t go off with any strange men.Grace can’t be around all the time.
Relationships: Jeremiah Valeska/Bruce Wayne, Jeremiah Valeska/Jerome Valeska/Bruce Wayne, Jerome Valeska/Bruce Wayne, Joker (DCU)/Bruce Wayne
Series: Ravenous [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714627
Comments: 49
Kudos: 219





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've gotten to the point where I'm re-reading my own fic out of a need for more content (how is there not more Wayleska and Valeyne? Maybe I'm biased because I shipped batjokes before watching Gotham, but still.) and gosh, I still really like what I did with Mouthwatering. That third chapter is just *chef's kiss*. If I were capable of writing longer stories I probably would have written more after the final chapter (all those months ago. My goodness, time flies), alas, I am all about shorter works, my attention span only stretches so far these days.
> 
> In any case; this is a canon divergence (of my own canon, no less) because I love these three together but I haven't had too much opportunity to write Bruce getting caught between both of my favourite Jokers. This takes place after/between various events of chapter three. If you did not like Mouthwatering, you are not going to like this.
> 
> If my tags and author's note haven't scared you off; I hope you enjoy. :)

Dim lights and loud music, the burn of alcohol in his throat and the sensation of strangers brushing up against him. Occasionally it still feels overwhelming—there are too many people, they get too close, his mind is too foggy—but when he isn’t out here he’s alone in his empty home and that’s even worse.

The quiet of the manor makes his paranoia skyrocket, as if behind every closed door something is lurking, patiently waiting for him to be the one to turn the handle and remove the flimsy barrier that separates him from _it_. The eerie silence is a poor backdrop for his already tumultuous inner thoughts. The flat echo of his footsteps on the hardwood floors and the other barest whispers of noise that he himself is responsible for makes him feel like a ghost. At least when he’s out here he feels like he might actually still be alive. 

Someone grabs onto his shoulder, nails digging in enough that Bruce can feel the pointed tips through his shirt. He turns slowly, eyes moving from the glittering polish on the nails, then up a slender arm, across a bared shoulder and finally resting upon a face.

The girl smiles at him in a way that a lot of girls around his age smile at him once they figure out who he is. Pretty as a picture, but with something hollow behind the eyes. Something that makes him think of his too quiet home where he’s not sure if breaking the silence by talking out loud to himself would be better or worse. She opens her mouth to say something—probably to ask him to dance or buy her a drink, that’s what girls usually do when Grace isn’t around to make them reconsider their strategy—but her eyes lock on something just behind Bruce’s shoulders, and her smile quickly fades.

“Sorry,” she offers, pulling her hand off of Bruce’s shoulder so quickly that one might think the contact had hurt her. “I thought you were someone else.”

She quickly turns away and Bruce swivels around to look behind him, because no one ever mistakes him for someone else. Especially not with Tommy proudly bragging about who he has sitting beside him who was willing to pay the tab. 

He thinks he sees a flash of iridescent green eyes in the crowd.

His heart beats a little faster in his chest and there’s a hair-raising awareness prickling along his spine. It's not unlike when he stands in front of a shut door at home, hesitantly reaching out for the handle and dizzy at the ridiculous possibility that there could be something behind the door waiting for him to pull it open, waiting for him to remove the barrier of his own volition. 

Green eyes, identical faces—

He hasn’t forgotten that night, though the details are fuzzy in the way that many of his nights are these days if he can recall them at all. Firm bodies and wandering hands, wet kisses and laughter, everything going much too fast even if it made Bruce feel warm and alive in a way that very little did, nowadays. But then he’d seen Grace and—

Had he made Grace promise him something?

“Has someone over there caught your attention,” Tommy asks as he winds an arm over Bruce’s shoulders. He squints at the crowd, as if trying to figure out who Bruce might have been staring at. “Because if so I’ve got to say; you can do better.”

Bruce resists the urge to elbow him sharply in the side and merely shrugs his arm off, instead. Tommy laughs at his apparent moodiness before pressing a cold glass into his hands.

“This’ll mellow you out,” he says, and Bruce accept the glass and brings it to his lips because—

—because he’s already started, and there’s no point in stopping. 

“It’s sweet,” he mumbles after taking a sip. “Like fruit punch.”

“You don’t even taste the alcohol,” Tommy replies sagely, “that’s why something like this ends up hitting you so much harder.”

Bruce brings the glass back up to his lips and drains half of it in one go. It doesn’t burn on the way down, but he can feel something warm pooling inside of him. He scans the crowd one last time for a set of half-remembered eyes and faces before turning to face Tommy.

“Order me another one of these.”

Tommy laughs and slaps his back.

The prickling sensation, like he’s being watched, returns full force.

But he’s Bruce Wayne, and he’s drinking while surrounded by people who would love to get their hands on him—or at least on his money—so how is this different from any other night, really?

He tries and fails not to think of the flash of green he’d spotted as he finishes his drink.

There had been something strange about them, hadn’t there? Stranger than the two of them approaching him together in the first place, stranger than—

Another bright drink is set before him on the bartop, and Bruce’s thoughts trail off as Tommy cheerily nudges it closer to him.

He distantly thinks that this might end up being another night that he doesn’t remember at all. 

He takes the drink in his hand and doesn’t notice the young woman beginning to approach him, or the way she suddenly stops in her tracks—eyes widening and face going pale as she feels _something_ , like a prey animal realizing that it has stepped into the sight of a predator, that makes her rethink her approach—and then abruptly turns with the intent to never step too close to Bruce Wayne again.

No one hears their laughter over the music. No one seems to notice them at all.

No one really had except for during the few seconds where they'd let their anger flare up, and afterwards no one had attempted to look for them; they were content to forget in a way that all miserable humans were content to forget the terrors that they should have remembered above all others. All humans except—

“He looked our way,” one says to the other. “He was trying to catch sight of us. He almost did.”

“What a sweet thing,” the other coos, eyes flashing. “Perhaps we should make ourselves easier to find.”

They laugh in tandem, harsh and under their breath, before moving closer in unison. 

They, who do not restrain themselves when it comes to their desires—though usually their desires are fear and flesh and blood, hot and heavy on their tongues, slipping down their throats to temporarily satiate their voracious appetites—have waited for so long. They have watched their boy grow up, become stronger, become more interesting. They have watched, and now they are not the only ones who watch him. 

They have touched. But they are not the only ones who have touched him.

The humans who get too close—or at least, the ones who he would notice if they went missing, the ones he might try to find—are fun to terrorize and toy with. They are cruel by nature, but their covetous hunger drives them to new heights when it comes to hunting those who have shown an attraction to Bruce. 

Passion and lust are not new to them, as a concept. They have seen much during their cycles and they have watched humans impassively through it all; naked flesh was only appealing for having one less layer for their teeth to pierce through. 

Until their attention fixated on he who was above being hunted in their usual way.

The stalking and watching of Bruce Wayne was no longer out of mere interest and amusement, and they who had used the land now called Gotham as a hunting ground for hundreds of years were now developing a curiosity and fascination for things which had, until now, been beneath them.

They want him.

They want to claim him. 

They want to keep him. 

If he were theirs, as he is meant to be, he would not need anyone else. He would become more than his prey origins would have ever allowed, and…

He would not need to touch anyone else. 

He would not need to look at anyone else.

They alone would satiate him.

They dream of it. They dream of him.

And they are sick of waiting.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very happy that you guys are excited for this continuation! We are just jumping straight into it, folks. I cannot wait to write _more_ of this, my gosh (and I cannot wait to further abuse the use of ~~strikethroughs, lol~~.) Get it, Bruce. They plan on taking such good care of you. 
> 
> As always, enjoy.

It’s so dark, as if they’ve slipped inside a jar of ink instead of what Bruce had thought was some sort of storage closet. An internal alarm blares mutedly inside of him, not because he’s afraid of the shadows but because the all-encompassing nature of them do not seem at all natural, but—

There is a wet mouth against his own, and a strong chest against his back, and there’s a familiarity to the way he is being pressed between two bodies that makes his heart race, rabbit-like, in his chest.

“I wondered if I’d ever see you again,” he whispers when the mouth intent on devouring him pulls away so that a slick tongue can drag up his cheek. Bruce should probably feel disgusted by it, at being licked by a man as if by a dog, but it’s hard to focus on that when the hands on his hips grip him so tightly that he wouldn’t be surprised if they left bruises in their wake. “I thought I did, sometimes,” his words are slurred, dreamy. Perhaps this is just a dream, after all. Perhaps he did not see them again. Perhaps they did not eagerly drag him ~~lure him~~ away from the crowd. “Maybe it was all in my head.”

The one behind him chuckles, breath huffing against Bruce’s shoulder. The one in front of him presses a kiss to his forehead, to the corners of his eyes, to his cheeks.

“Maybe you saw us because you wanted to see us,” the one behind, Jerome, speaks into the crook of his neck. Bruce can feel the drag of teeth against the sensitive flesh there and it makes him shudder.

“Did you want to see us again, Bruce?” The one in front, Jeremiah, whispers against his mouth, lips barely grazing. Teasing. Toying.

“Yes,” he says, too honest by half. He’d wanted to see them again. How many times had he seen them before? He is even more sure now that they’d met previously, if only he could just remember. “I wanted, I wanted you—” Whatever he means to say is cut off and his ability to form sentences is abruptly destroyed. Jeremiah kisses like he’s starving and all Bruce wants is to appease him. To appease them both.

He had missed them. They had missed him.

They had met before, surely, however long ago it might have been. They wouldn’t feel this way, otherwise.

Would they?

Their eyes had not been hollow when they smiled at him; instead they were alight with something that made Bruce feel strangely transparent. Like they could look into the heart and soul of him. Like his name and his money and his secrets held no weight. Like they wanted him because he was himself, as if he’d left some sort of lasting impression upon them.

They touch him like they’re ravenous, and it awakens something hungry and wanting inside of him, too.

No one else has ever made him feel like this.

He opens his mouth allowing the long, cool tongue which had lapped eagerly at his lips to rove inside, pressing against his teeth and tongue and hard palate as if to memorize the inside of him. It’s wet, almost grossly so, but he thinks this is how they kissed him before, too, so many weeks ago. Jeremiah hums and presses closer still, and one of Jerome’s hands drifts from Bruce’s hip towards the front of his body, idly coming to rest over his cock.

Bruce jerks back, a soft rush of breath escaping his lungs. He might ask for more—his heart is beating too loud for him to hear what sounds he’s making—because Jerome chuckles; a deep rumble that Bruce is sure he can feel reverberating in his bones. Bruce rests more of his weight against him, legs shifting further apart, and he feels Jerome huff against his neck before suddenly his teeth are clamping down—

It hurts. It’s wet. He’d definitely broken skin.

Bruce’s dick twitches against Jerome’s unmoving palm.

“You’re so sweet, darlin’,” Jerome drawls, sounding about as drunk as Bruce feels. Bruce wonders, brief and staticky, how much they’d had to drink before approaching him. Wonders if any of them are going to be able to fully remember this night, when it’s all over. He hopes that he at least remembers parts of it. “I always knew you would be.” He leans and draws his tongue along the stinging skin, and if Bruce were a little more sober he might wonder if it was normal to be so desirous of blood that you’d willingly lap the open wound of someone who was, essentially, a stranger.

~~But we’re not strangers, Brucie. Strangers don’t know each other’s names.~~

He grits his teeth at the flares of pain caused by Jerome’s attentions. He tries and fails to choke back a moan as Jerome’s palm absently rocks against him as if the action is merely an afterthought. He’s hurt. He’s bleeding. He’s getting hard.

“Don’t be greedy,” Jeremiah chides harshly. Bruce can’t see what happens, but he hears a smack and feels the sudden absence of a mouth against him, for a short while at least, because then Jeremiah is leaning in and—

Bruce opens his mouth in a gasp as the wound is opened wider. Deeper.

Had Jeremiah’s teeth always felt so sharp?

“You are delicious, sweetheart,” Jeremiah huffs against him, words muffled from the way he can’t seem to bring himself to break away from Bruce. It stings terribly but it makes him feel alive, and it makes him feel wanted, and it makes him feel like he’s not alone.

Jeremiah moves even closer and between them Jerome’s hand presses down on Bruce even more firmly. It’s smothering in the best way.

He has felt so alone, and yet terribly not alone, on his own in the manor. He likes the way that they eagerly push against him. Likes that they’re so obviously here with him. Doesn’t think he could stand if they pulled away and he were left guessing about whether they were nearby or not, whether it was all in his head or not—just like how he feels when he stands in front of a door and hesitates to open it because he both wants and dreads the proof that there is something lurking inside, something that’s been haunting him—

“Please,” he asks, craning his neck so that Jeremiah can take whatever he needs, pressing back into Jerome’s chest to remind him that Bruce hasn’t forgotten about him, either. “Please,” he doesn’t even know what he’s asking for. All he wants is whatever they want.

Jerome inhales deeply behind him, as if he’s reveling in the scent of Bruce’s hair, and his palm steadily begins to grind against Bruce in a dizzying manner.

“How could we deny you, when you ask us so nicely,” he hisses, there’s something ~~inhuman~~ different about his voice, but Bruce is far too drunk and distracted to pick it apart.

“Yes,” Jeremiah groans, pulling away from Bruce’s broken flesh as if it’s one of the most difficult things he’s ever done. “How could we deny you anything?”

Bruce wishes he could see, then. Wishes he could see their faces. Wishes he at least had a chance to attempt to figure out how truthful they were being.

His eyes still haven’t adjusted to the dark.

How strange, that there isn’t even a sliver of light coming in from under the doorway they must have come through to get here. How strange, that Bruce’s frazzled mind can’t remember a doorway at all. They’d stepped into the dark so suddenly, but there must have been an entrance—

There are hands tugging the hem of his shirt up over his head, hands unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans, hands smoothing out his hair, hands stroking over his chest, hands cupping the wet front of his boxers.

They move so fast it’s almost as if there are too many hands between them, as if they’ve sprouted extra limbs in the dark.

One pinches at a nipple and Bruce jerks again.

“Your hands are cold,” he sighs, “why are you always so cold?” he reaches out blindly and grabs onto one of the offending limbs. He rubs it between his palms in an attempt to offer and create warmth where there is none, and out of an instinct he doesn’t fully understand he brings it up to his mouth and presses a kiss against the knuckles. They are cool against his lips.

The chill lingers even after he pulls back.

Behind him Jerome’s breaths become even heavier.

“Darlin’,” he rasps. “Do you remember when we first met?”

What an odd question. Hadn’t they been vague about whether or not Bruce knew them the last time that they had crossed paths? ~~When their faces shifted strangely whenever he wasn’t looking directly at them. A face that was scarred. A face that was painted. Too wide smiles paired with too sharp teeth. Too terrifying to be clowns.~~ Even though Bruce was sure that they’d met before.

But he’d forgotten. How could he have forgotten?

“Should I remember?” His voice sounds small to his own ears. He wants to apologize for forgetting, but he thinks…

Had he apologized for it last time? His thoughts are fuzzy.

Jerome sighs against him, his lips grazing a trail down Bruce’s bare neck. “No, you shouldn’t. But maybe someday you will.” He spins Bruce around before Bruce can puzzle out what his words mean and presses his mouth against Bruce’s with just as much decisive hunger as Jeremiah.

It’s odd that they are not fumbling around in the dark. Nothing changes for Bruce whether or not his eyes are open, but they seem to have no trouble finding his lips with their own on the first try, and Jeremiah had had no trouble hitting Jerome without even grazing Bruce by accident.

“Can you see?” he asks, then feels foolish. No human could see in this pitch-black environment, surely.

But then… They had such odd, gleaming eyes. Perhaps they had better vision than most.

~~~~Like nocturnal hunters.~~ ~~

“A little,” Jeremiah says between pressing kisses across Bruce’s shoulders. “We wish we could see more, though. Wish we could watch you break apart so pretty for us. Wish you could see what you do to us, sweetheart.” His hands—or at least, Bruce assumes that they’re his hands, it’s becoming very difficult to keep track of anything—pinch at Bruce’s nipples again. “Maybe next time.”

Next time, Bruce means to choke out, a disorienting mixture of anxiety and paranoia and giddiness churning inside of him—were they really so sure that they would see him again after this?—but he cannot say anything, because two of Jeremiah’s fingers are pressing deeply into Bruce’s mouth, grazing the back of his throat and making him gag before retreating slightly.

“You’re so warm inside. Are you this warm everywhere?” Jeremiah murmurs under his breath. He presses down on Bruce’s tongue, as if enjoying the sensation of it against the pads of his fingers, before dragging them out. His nails scrape against Bruce’s tongue as they go, feeling longer and sharper than they had before.

But Bruce can’t question that, because with his mouth free Jerome is kissing him again, and Jeremiah’s wet fingers are skimming down the small of his back, underneath the waistband of his boxers, and pressing—

“Oh,” Bruce rasps, heart fluttering, face burning, cock aching. “Don’t go too fast, it’ll—it’ll hurt.”

“Nonsense, precious,” Jeremiah says, though he thankfully holds himself back from pressing any deeper. “If I wanted to hurt you, you would know it.”

That isn’t at all reassuring. Bruce’s heart beats even harder but he can’t quite work out if it’s because he’s angry, or afraid, or aroused. Maybe he’s all of them at once.

“Be careful,” Jerome chides. His hands are rubbing bizarrely soothing circles on Bruce’s hips. “We don’t want to break him.”

“No one’s going to break me,” Bruce cuts in, a flare of anger loosening his tongue. “Just be careful. I haven’t—I’ve never—you’re my first.”

Around him the twins go still. Then they shudder. Then they press closer and closer until Bruce can hardly draw in a breath, as if they cannot stand to have any space between themselves and Bruce. As if they would fuse together with him, if they could.

“We’ll be so good to you,” Jeremiah whispers in his ear.

“You’ll never want anyone else,” Jerome finishes.

“Prove it,” Bruce challenges, the desire inside of him sparking into a wildfire. His hands reach out to the both of them, one threading firmly into Jeremiah’s hair, the other curling tightly around the back of Jerome’s neck. It’s a possessive touch, but neither of them seems to mind.

Of course, their touches have been nothing _but_ possessive, as if they already thought that Bruce would only ever be theirs. It’s presumptive. Arrogant. He should probably dissuade such behaviour, but that would mean stopping.

Bruce doesn’t want to stop.

“Prove it,” he repeats, feeling more confident. They want him. They found him and brought him here because they wanted him. He doesn’t know exactly what they plan on doing with him, but he’s sure he wants it too, whatever it is.

He hopes he’s able to remember some of this tomorrow when he’s alone once again, drifting through his house and wondering if the goosebumps on his arms were just from a chill in the air or if someone—or something—was watching him. It will make him feel better, he thinks, remembering the press of them against his body. Remembering how enclosed he felt. It’s not the same as feeling safe, but he can’t help but believe that with them bracketing him as they are nothing else would possibly be able to touch him. Not even the ghosts that haunt his footsteps.

“I want you to,” he finishes, eyes wide open but still unseeing.

There’s a sound, like a low growl—

~~~~Or two growls, or maybe like a beastly purr. Whatever it is, it’s doesn’t sound human.~~ ~~

—and then there’s pressure, and a ripping noise, and cool air against his entire body. He’s turned, pushed, pressed down, his knees scraping against the floor—

~~~~Why is the air so cool? Why does the floor feel like uneven ground? Why is there no hint of light through the door? Why hasn’t he been able to hear any of the sounds of the club?~~ ~~

—but none of those things matter as much as the feeling of something smooth and slick running down the crease of his ass, just as Jeremiah’s fingers did, before—

A curse rips its way out of his throat, and the chuckle he gets in response rumbles against his bare skin.

The tongue inside of him—and his frazzled mind can hardly even comprehend the notion of what is currently happening—presses deeper and curls. Bruce falls forward, face almost hitting the floor, hands scrabbling in front of him as his body adjusts to the intrusion. The stretch is more shocking than it is painful, though there is some discomfort. Mostly there is nothing but a molten feeling stirring inside of him, growing liquid hot and spreading throughout his entire body.

A hand pets his hair, gentle and loving and at complete odds with the way Jeremiah’s hands have gripped onto his hips. Bruce can feel his nails ~~so sharp, more like claws than nails~~ digging into his skin, spilling even more of his blood.

He probably shouldn’t be surprised that Jeremiah pulls away from him to lap at the red trails now running down his thighs.

“Brucie,” Jerome croons in a voice that makes the hair on the back of Bruce’s neck stand up. He wonders, thoughts too clear all of a sudden, if he might not be a little in over his head. Jerome’s hand curls in his hair and tugs his face upwards. Bruce can feel him breathing heavily against his skin. He wonders how much of his expression Jerome is able to make out in the dark. “Will you let us keep you?”

Bruce’s breath stutters to a halt in his chest. He is not a thing that can be kept; not a flower, or a painting, or a pet. His response is obvious, but he can’t seem to say it.

Jerome lets go of his hair and strokes the side of his cheek with his cold hand. Jeremiah presses lingering kisses to the cuts he’d left on Bruce’s hips. Both actions feel oddly adoring. Both actions make something uneasy flutter in his chest. How strange it is that their affectionate gestures are what makes him feel the most apprehensive.

“We will keep you.” His voice is compelling, hypnotic in a way that Bruce has never encountered ~~or doesn’t remember~~. He speaks as if whatever he says is destined to become true, as if he is used to others caving to his will. Jerome’s free hand briefly comes to rest over Bruce’s thundering heart, then begins to slip down, down, down. “Will you let us?”

_Yes._

_No._

“Why would you want to keep me,” he rasps, breath hitching as Jerome’s fingers wrap around his cock. “I’m not—”

“Not what?” Jeremiah scrapes sharp teeth along the small of his back. It’s almost as distracting as Jerome’s hand. “Tell us, Bruce. What aren’t you?”

He opens his mouth to answer; not something that can be possessed, but he lets out an embarrassing, high sound instead when Jerome’s wrist twists on an upstroke just as Jeremiah’s tongue laps a broad, wet path against the place where he’s been left open and aching.

“I knew you’d fight it,” Jerome huffs against him in between open-mouthed kisses. He sounds oddly proud, like he wanted Bruce to deny them. Bruce doesn’t understand it. He’s not sure if he wants to. They were strange in the light, but they were proving themselves to be even more uncanny in the dark. “Always so stubborn. We like that about you.”

“You hardly know me,” Bruce protests. Was this some sort of test? If it was he could only guess that he was passing, because neither of them seemed willing to pull away in the slightest.

“We know enough.” Jeremiah murmurs against him. Bruce can feel more cold, thick liquid slicking the skin under Jeremiah’s mouth, as if Jeremiah is actually drooling against him. “And you’ll know us, soon. You’ll understand, then.” His hands grip onto Bruce’s hips again. “You’ll understand.”

Whatever he means to say—either a reprimand for their arrogant possessiveness or another bold demand that they prove themselves, he can’t be sure, his thoughts are swimmingly too quickly in his head—is burned into ashes as Jeremiah’s tongue breaches him again at the same time that Jerome’s lips wrap around the head of his cock.

Their eerie conversation nearly dissolves from his memory entirely as he shifts between them, hands reaching out, hips bucking, mouth falling open with sharp, wordless cries. He rocks between them unsteadily, one hand fisting tightly into Jerome’s hair, the other digging into one of Jeremiah’s wrists. It must hurt them, though they show no signs of pain, but maybe they deserve it for saying such strange things to him after acting like they do not know each other. Perhaps if he is just as rough with them as they are with him they’ll learn some kind of lesson. Perhaps they will know better than to tell him that they mean to keep him, as if Bruce would just allow himself to be kept. He pulls Jerome’s hair. He digs his fingernails into Jeremiah’s skin. Neither of them recoil, if anything they surge even closer. Jerome has swallowed him down to the root, now, and he scratches a new set of lines along Bruce’s waist as Jeremiah presses impossibly deep. He feels full and oversensitive, his eyes beginning to sting from an excess of pleasure.

It’s good but too much, too much, too much—

His body seizes, muscles clenching and spasming. He thinks, briefly, that he sees lights in the darkness—a swirling pattern of stars that he has never seen before—but then his eyes clench shut again and all he can do is shudder and moan and take, take, take what the twins give him. They groan, as if taking pleasure in his orgasm, and before his thoughts become too indistinct he wonders if they are touching themselves as they continue to lavish him with their overly-intense attentions.

He calls their names, he thinks, before the overwhelmed tears start falling from his eyes. Before his grip on them goes completely limp. Before he becomes an absolute wreck caught between their ceaseless, starving mouths.

He is still crying when they finally pull away, aftershocks running through his body and making his limbs twitch. He feels out of focus, like he’s about to fade into the shadows. Like he’s going to get lost in the dark and no one will be able to find him, except for maybe them.

They would always find him, wouldn’t they?

He blinks, trying to untangle his own contemplations.

What did he mean?

How many times had they found him before?

They lick the tear tracks off of his face and his thoughts become even more nebulous.

“Did we prove it, Bruce,” he thinks he hears them ask, their murmuring soft as if they were speaking from far away. “Did we prove it?”

Bruce’s wet eyes fall shut.

When they open again he is alone in his bed, his head aching fiercely. He stumbles to his bathroom, flashes of the night flickering behind his eyes. He turns on the tap and cups his shaking hands under the water—

It was them again. He knows it was them; the men with the vivid eyes and hungry mouths. He saw them, and they saw him. He fell into their orbit, or maybe they fell into his, and they’d circled each other on a collision course.

—he brings the water up to his mouth and drinks, hoping to relieve his roiling stomach. He’d drunk too much last night. If he hadn’t, maybe he would remember more.

They’d kissed him, touched him, taken him somewhere dark. A supply closet?

They’d pressed against him from both sides, they’d…

He shuts his eyes and splashes water on his face, hoping the cold will bring some additional clarity.

It doesn’t.

But he remembers how it felt to be between them. Not exactly safe, but like no one could possibly get to him, not when they were right there with him.

He looks up at the mirror, but not to gaze at his own reflection. Instead he looks behind himself, checking, always checking, just to be sure that there was no one else with him.

There isn’t. There never is.

_Is there?_

He needs to calm down or he’s going to drive himself crazy.

He takes in a shuddering breath and then his gaze finally turns towards himself.

He curses softly at the size of the mark on his neck, a half-remembered dream which turned out to be all too real. Just looking at it hurts. He’ll need to put antiseptic on it to make sure it doesn’t get infected.

It looks like a brand against his skin. Like a claim.

_Will you let us keep you?_

Something inside of Bruce clenches hotly.

He wonders if he’ll ever see them again.

~~~~He knows that he will.~~ ~~


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new chapter featuring; more plot than I originally anticipated, the continuation of sinister undertones, and Jeremiah and Jerome being utter creeps while Bruce is asleep (what a surprise). Might end up upping the chapter count, because I feel like the next part might get a bit lengthy.

Bruce throws himself face first onto his bed, a displeased huff escaping him.

He had thought that he’d seen a flash of acid green at the beginning of the night. The caustic nature of the colour—like it could melt through anything—had made it difficult for him to catch his breath for a few moments, as if he were on the verge of stepping from the ledge of a cliff out into the open air, or as if he were facing down ~~clowns with too wide smiles who almost never blinked~~ certain death. There was danger, there. Danger in their eyes and their smirks and their poise. It made a slew of conflicting emotions well up in the depths of him: dread and desire and agitation. Not fear, because over time Bruce has become more stubbornly resolute than he has ever been afraid, but—

The reminder of their eyes ~~so eerily familiar~~ had unsuccessfully tugged at something locked away in his mind and, in spite of the fact that it was surely madness to even consider such a thing, he’d wondered if they shared some sort of innate connection. Although however such a connection might have been forged was kept a secret from his own indistinct recollections. 

He had thought that their paths might collide again and he’d been more reserved with his drinking than he usually was in the hopes that he would remember more, this time. He’d wondered if he might get some actual answers out of them, this time.

He thinks one of them might have mentioned a next time, those few nights ago. But he cannot be absolutely sure that they did, and it’s irritating how his mind seems to work against him when it comes to them. As if his memories were swept away into the darkest corners where they were meant to be quickly forgotten and replaced by other things. It makes no sense, and yet…

In any case, it was all for nothing. He hadn’t seen either of them beyond that—perhaps imagined—glimpse of vibrant green, and even if Tommy tried to nudge him towards every pretty girl they’d come across in order to ‘loosen him up’ he’d known that there was no point in starting anything with any of them. They wouldn’t make him feel any better even if their intentions of getting closer to him weren’t solely fueled by the knowledge of what his name symbolized. 

It wouldn’t be the same. It would be… Normal, maybe, was what it would be, because there was no way the bites and scratches and bruises that had been left on him were a usual thing.

Still, what little he can remember about their time together makes heat curl in his gut, and he thinks that normal isn’t even remotely close to what he wants. 

He sighs and twists onto his back, a hand coming up to press at the fading bruise which encircles the pinpoints of scabbing on his neck. The lingering traces of two sets of teeth. It aches sharply when he applies too much pressure, but instead of making him recoil from himself it makes his heart jerk sickly in his chest. He has never felt any sort of affinity for pain, but there was something about them that made him feel all mixed up and convoluted; the lines of hurt and gratification blurring together in a wash of pure sensation.

“I am so weird,” he says out loud to himself, eyes scanning the darkened corners of his room.

It’s so quiet that all he can hear is his own breathing. Then the rustling of fabric as his hand trails down his neck and chest, eventually coming to a stop low on his abdomen.

He’s considered it before; touching himself while thinking of them. Sometimes he’s woken up from strange dreams, half-sure that he had felt ~~clawed~~ hands carding through his hair, and he’d felt a familiar stirring inside of him even as he drifted back to sleep. He hadn’t acted on the impulses, too flustered and somewhat unsettled at the idea of masturbating to thoughts of a pair of men that he could hardly remember while he was sober. It was strange enough, surely, that the first time he’d done anything sexual it had been with a set of twins who were certainly older than him and were certainly very odd. But…

The air in his room seems thick. It feels as though he is not the only one who is holding his breath, waiting. 

But it had felt good being surrounded by them, enclosed within the space of their matching bodies. He can’t remember the particulars, but some nights the memories seem closer to the surface than others, as if he could reach out and curl his fingers into them and tug them into the forefront of his mind. Like…

Like tugging on red hair.

Something hot flickers inside of him and, as gross as it may be to fantasize about what a pair of almost-strangers might have done with him while they were all intoxicated, he decides to give in. 

He’s half hard by the time he actually lays a hand on his cock, and he bites his lip a touch too hard as he rocks up against his palm. His lip splits from the pressure and the sting briefly makes his eyes clench shut. He tastes copper in his mouth and in the back of his mind he wonders if all blood tastes the same, because they had seemed so eager to drink his straight from the source.

So eager; as if they would drain him dry if they could. As if they’d happily devour him whole.

He brings his hand up into his mouth and spits into his palm before reaching down again. It feels hotly illicit to have saliva smoothing the quickening path of his hand. Cool and wet. He kicks his pants off the rest of the way and opens his legs wider, hand curling tighter around himself.

Possessed. Owned. That’s what it had felt like to be smothered between them. Bruce only belongs to himself, but he could let them pretend if that’s what they yearned for so desperately. If they were good, and asked nicely, and gave him what he wanted, then he could let them believe that he was theirs. That he was meant to be theirs. That he would always be theirs.

His breath hitches. The molten core of him is burning, burning, burning. He hastily spits into his palm a second time. He toys with himself while desperately trying to remember what else they had done, but the memories will not come to him and he is left reeling at the nonsensical idea that nothing he fantasizes about could possibly be as good as what had actually happened. 

He curses, splays his unoccupied hand against his chest, pinches a nipple. Pinches it harder when his cock jerks, precum spurting from his slit. It coats his already slick fingers. He wonders what it tastes like.

His toes curl, his mouth falls open, the pressure inside of him swiftly builds. He thinks he remembers a mouth around him and—

Wetness trails down the base of his cock, dripping down his perineum. 

Something inside him. He’d felt so full—

The wet drips a slick path over his hole and he comes abruptly in his fist, softly gasping around a pair of names. He keeps touching himself even though he feels overly sensitive—even though he really thinks he ought to stop—because he is almost sure that that is what they had done to him. He strokes his softening cock, thinks about reaching beyond it and pressing a finger inside of himself, and keeps going until his legs clamp together and his back arcs and he feels his eyes start to sting.

He falls to pieces, the edges of him hypersensitive and raw, and he trembles in the wake of the aftershocks that overtake him. In the back of his mind he wishes there were someone here to kiss him; on his lips and his cheeks and over his thundering heart. Someone to pry him open and kiss him inside, too. His lips part in a shuddering exhale and the thought drifts away like smoke in the wind.

He lays back on his bed, panting, feeling boneless and barely coordinated enough to pull a blanket over himself.

He falls asleep. 

He dreams.

_He is alone in a haunted house. But is it really haunted, if he is the ghost that resides there? He slips in and out of rooms unnoticed because there is no other human here, living or dead. The silence is deafening. He is unbearably lonely. He wishes that he weren’t._

_And then he stands in front of closed a door. He reaches out to rest a hand upon the handle but stops before pushing it open. An internal alarm is ringing in his head; beware, beware, beware. Something is wrong._

_Something is behind the door._

_Something is waiting for him to break the barrier between himself and it._

_He withdraws, meaning to move on quickly and quietly, but then his skin pricks, and—_

_If he turns around now he thinks that there would be something. Right. There._

_His heartbeat stutters._

_He feels a gust of scalding-hot breath against the back of his neck. He is frozen. Paralyzed. Something is behind him and he cannot move, cannot speak, can barely even breathe. Trapped by an ambush predator and held in place by panic. He wishes that he felt lonely again, instead of feeling like a rabbit caught in a snare. Whatever is behind him isn’t human._

_There are no humans here._

_The being croons something in a language that he doesn’t understand; ancient and dizzying, malevolent in some intrinsic way. It hurts to listen to—akin to feedback from a microphone—but he cannot cover his ears. He feels pointed tips of something—the metal or bone of some kind of weapon or most worrying of all; teeth—scrape lightly against him. He feels wetness drip against his skin and even if he were not locked in place he does not know if he’d want to look to discover whether it was blood or ichor or sweat or drool. He thinks he knows, anyways, just as he’d known that there was a chance the sharpness against his skin were the incisors and canines of some great, hulking predator. Whatever is behind him, it's hungry. Bruce isn’t sure how he knows that with certainty, but he does. He just does._

_The door in front of him swings open seemingly of its own accord, and Bruce sees—_

_He sees—_

_He hears screeching and his vision abruptly goes black. He feels gusts of air—cool, this time. Soothing— against his face._

_Wings._

_Bats._

_They encapsulate him, a barrier between himself and the monsters that have fenced him in. Through the quickly shifting gaps he thinks he sees lights; a pattern of unfamiliar, alien stars. The bats alone are not enough to stop the monstrous claws from reaching for him—_

He jerks awake with a gasp, heart hammering in his chest.

All he can hear is his own breathing.

But that does not mean that he is the only one here. 

He feels like a child again. Back during those strange times when he’d been sure, for some reason or another, that someone was watching him from the shadowed corners of his room. He thinks that he used to say to the all-encompassing gloom that it was cowardly to hide in the dark. He knows better, now. Using the dark is a clever tactic, one that he’d taken advantage of back when he was walking on rooftops and fighting crime. The dark is his element, too, and he is too numb after the strange dream to feel fear or anger at others who would manipulate the shadows for their own gain. He only feels tired and long-suffering. Acceptance and resignation. 

“Why are you doing this,” he asks, exhaustion slurring his words. His eyes are heavy. He’s distantly surprised at how quickly he is falling back asleep. “Why can’t you bother someone else?”

He doesn’t get an answer. He doesn’t expect one. He’d never gotten an answer before, after all.

At least, he thinks he didn’t. 

In his dreams he hears ~~familiar~~ laughter. It eventually fades under a thunderous shuffle of air, like thousands of bats taking flight. 

x-x-x

Their time awake is coming to an end and they must prepare themselves for the years-long sleep ahead. They hunt and stalk and terrorize and gorge themselves, and still they are not satisfied.

They never are. Not really. They always have room for more, more, more. More fear and flesh and blood and meat. There is a void inside of them which can never truly be filled, not unless they devour the whole city, the whole planet, the whole system of stars surrounding them. But then nothing would be left behind, and they would become hungry again.

They become crueler as the time to sleep draws closer. Their games have higher stakes, and they allow their prey to feel more pain before their inevitable end. The unassailable terror that seizes the ones that they have marked as food floods their senses, makes their mouths water, makes their razor teeth extrude further from their gums. The never-ending hunger abates, then, though it is never fully extinguished. 

The closest they had ever come to feeling full had been when they’d feasted on something sweet, something special, something meant to be savoured.

Their boy had been all they could have wanted, and more. His hot blood heavy on their tongues, his warm body held captive between them, his pretty eyes searching for them in the dark, his sweet voice uttering the names that they had given him as his senses overloaded from their combined attentions 

He had felt pleasure. They had given him pleasure.

They had never given such a thing before: they gave madness and pain and horror and death. It was their nature to give only that which benefited themselves, greedy and opportunistic, caring only for their own satisfaction. Even their benevolence with _him_ was not out of a previously forgotten goodness, for there was nothing about them that was good. 

They had indulged in it. Indulged in _him_. In the hedonistic gratification that they’d granted him. 

It was succulent and luscious. Not better than fear, no, but more precious than it. A rarity. Bruce was the only source of it that they would ever feast from. No other human had ever proven themselves as worth more than being prey. No other human deserved the attention of their mouths and hands for reasons other than biting and swallowing and ripping and tearing. They would have him every night like that, if they could spare the time. But they must continue their hunts. Feasting upon him alone for sustenance would no doubt be too much for his body to handle. It is too bad, but they don’t want his heart to give out from the strain.

He is only human, after all. An incredible abnormality of one—the potential to become better and more was shining like some sort of golden beacon inside of him, a light which drew them in even as the valiant righteousness repelled them—but a human none the less.

Still, they do take the time to seek him out when they can; just as they always have and just as they always will. The sight of him soothes the raging desire to eat until they are the only things left in the universe. They adore him, in their own monstrous way. And they want him, want him, want him.

They will have him again, because they do not deny themselves anything. 

Whenever they have a moment they watch him as he sleeps, as he drinks, as he slips around his house with his eyes darting back and forth as if he can sense that they’re there and is trying to watch them back. They’ve hung around him for so long that he must feel their presence lingering in the air, and someday he may even catch them in the act. May turn and notice them in the shadows. May open his eyes and see their true faces grinning down at him. May fight them with his dull teeth and dull nails because he was resistive to their calls, to their charms, when so many others before him had easily fallen victim to them. The knowledge makes them laugh—they have seen him fight, seen him move with brutal violence and grace, it would be fun to play with him in such a way—but it also sparks something hot and wicked inside of them. Perhaps he would be able to draw their blood, unimaginable as it may seem. Perhaps it would be their blood in his mouth, the next time around. Their blood under his nails. They’d reward him for his ferocity by responding in kind; biting him softly.

He had liked it when they bit him softly. They had liked it, too. 

And so they watch him; watch him touch himself to thoughts of them, watch him shudder and moan so prettily, watch him fall apart, watch him as he sleeps.

Touch him as he sleeps. 

They run the tips of their claws through the ends of his curls. Press their lips to his skin to remember what it is like to have flesh against their mouths which they do not mean to consume. Whisper terrible secrets to him. Tell him their true names which no human could ever repeat without choking on a mouthful of blood. Breathe in the long-since-memorized scent of him. Mark him with their own scent, for there are other terrors in the universe which might take an interest in he who they have become attached to. 

And they know that they must have him, again and again. This cycle. The next cycle. The cycle after that.

He is theirs, now.

He doesn’t believe it. But he is. And they are selfish above all things.

One lifts Bruce’s limp hand up to their mouth, tongue elongating to indulgently lap at tacky fingers. It hadn’t had the opportunity to relish the taste of him like this last time, its sibling greedily taking it all for itself. They wrap their lips around the digits, wetly swallowing down every trace of him. 

“He’s having a nightmare,” the other huffs, pupils widening even further in the dark. It has been a while since the taste of Bruce’s fear has saturated the air, and inside of it a lecherous craving bubbles to the surface. They drink in the scent of him, the fear of him, greedily feasting upon the traces. Their mouth waters. They wonder what would happen if Bruce woke up in this moment—if he would be overcome by horror or by anger or by something else entirely. They press a cool hand against his face, thumb just barely thrusting inside the cavern of his warm, welcoming mouth. They marvel at the sensation. “I wonder if he dreams of us.” 

“His heart is racing,” the first says, licking their lips. They breathe in the fear, too, incapable of denying themselves such a rare and radiant delicacy. “Like it was racing for us. Like it was racing when he thought of us.” It laughs, a high-pitched giggle that would flood any room with a sense of unease. “We’ll make it race like this again.”

“Yes,” the second agrees. It leans in to whisper a dreadful promise into one ear.

They are well-hidden when he wakes. They laugh when he falls back to sleep.

They are so, so hungry. 

Their hunt begins anew. There are new targets to find whose fears are easily exploited. New masks for them to slip overtop of their true faces. New traps to set. New cruel games of cat and mouse to play. There is so much crime and violence in the mad city that houses them—their wakeful periods cause even more, seeming to provoke the very worst in humanity to reveal itself—and they are determined to delight in the brutality of it for as long as they can. They do not often attempt to set humans against each other, but tensions and paranoia are already high in many of those who would fall under their influence easily, and they can only gain from spurring it on. A sighting of someone who should not be seen here, a vision of terrible things which could come to pass there, enough noise coming from the shadows to drive anyone a little mad. Perhaps if they cause a bloodbath and consume all the fear of death which will permeate the air before consuming the bodies until there is no trace of them left—no one would bat an eye at a dozen or so missing criminals, surely. Not during this cycle, with so much discontent and mayhem stirring up the city—they will be able to go to sleep satiated. 

Their scheming and shadowing comes to an abrupt halt one night when they smell—

—familiar and sweet, red and warm—

— _his_ blood in the air. 

x-x-x

He sits in a heavily shadowed corner, knuckles split and bloody, a metallic tang lingering in his mouth from when his nose had been actively bleeding while he’d been too preoccupied to try and wipe his face. He can’t bring himself to regret the actions that he had carried out which left them as such. Maybe his days of fighting crime are behind him, but that doesn’t mean he’ll stand aside as people walk over the closest things to friends that he has.

Grace settles down beside him, back from her hasty trip to the bar, and presses a clean dishcloth stuffed full of ice to his jaw. He groans mutedly in discomfort.

“What were you thinking, Bruce?” She asks, eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed. She’s nice. Bruce almost wishes that he could like someone like her instead of—instead of—

“Someone had to defend Tommy’s honor,” he says, attempting humour. It falls terribly short and, even with Tommy vehemently denying a need for anyone to get into a fight on his behalf, Grace begins to appear even more concerned. She hasn’t looked at him like this since the first time he’d gone out after firing Alfred—

Bruce’s stomach twists into a knot, as it often does when his thoughts drift too close to that particular subject. The ache in his jaw and the ache in his chest combined are dreadfully sobering, and—not for the first time—he wishes he could be a normal teenager with normal problems. What were failed exams and unsuccessful university applications compared to killing someone because they told you if you didn’t they would come back to murder everyone that you loved? But Bruce has advanced too far—has evolved in a way that his parents would have never wanted—and his chance at being anything like a normal teenager is long gone.

He’ll never be a normal adult, either, and his awareness of it always manages to drag his mood down into a pit. He’ll just have to pretend as best as he is able. Bruce Wayne: high-class brat. Normal enough, all things considered. People as rich as he was could afford eccentricities just as easily as they could afford to buy copious amounts of alcohol even though they were under the legal drinking age. 

“Tommy,” Grace cuts the other’s spiel off curtly, “could you take this seriously for a second? Honestly, the both of you are ridiculous. Bruce, you can’t pick fights like that even if it’s for a noble cause. It was three against one. You could have gotten even more seriously hurt.”

Bruce doubts it, but he knows well enough to hold his tongue. Grace pulls the makeshift icepack away from his face for a moment, hisses under her breath, and presses it back against him. 

“Would you like me to call a cab to take you home?”

Being alone at the manor is the last thing he wants, especially since thoughts of Alfred have already surfaced. He’ll only feel worse than usual. He’d rather let himself get distracted to the best of his ability or get drunk enough that he doesn’t remember the fight or anything after it. 

He spies a flash of green far beyond Grace’s shoulder, on the opposite side of the dance floor, and then he sees—

Them. He stares directly at them and they do not disappear like smoke. He looks at Grace, licking his lips as he attempts to put his thoughts in order, and then he glances past her shoulder once more. They have not moved. They’re actually here, not just a figment of his overactive imagination. 

They’re looking right at him.

His heart starts racing just from that.

“I can call my own cab,” he murmurs. “Make sure Tommy doesn’t get into any more trouble tonight.”

He stands up. He moves towards them. He doesn’t look back at Grace or Tommy. The crowd in front of him seems to part, not as if they are paying particular attention to his movements but as if they know, somehow, that what he needs is to get to them before they disappear again. 

He comes to a stop a few paces from them and the crowd converges back on the path that he had walked. If he cared to think it over he might question how such a thing happened to occur right as he wanted to move quickly, but the actions and reactions of complete strangers are not something that interest him right now.

“Hello,” he greets. He feels an urge to move closer, entering their space completely, but he resolutely stays put. He has come this far. It is up to them to close the gap.

And they do. They come forward, close enough that they could speak in low voices and still be heard over the music, and Bruce’s skin tingles at their nearness.

“Brucie.” Jerome reaches out. He takes hold of Bruce’s hand and lifts it up to his mouth, lips briefly settling against his split knuckles. He doesn’t break eye contact; his gaze is burning. Something in Bruce’s chest lurches. “Rough night?”

“No,” he answers, unflinching. “It was nothing.”

He’s had much worse. He’s _done_ much worse.

Jeremiah’s hand settles upon the side of his face, resting against the fresh bruising along Bruce’s jaw. Here the unnatural cool that permeates them is welcome. Bruce sighs and presses his face further into Jeremiah’s palm, letting his eyes fall shut. Jeremiah’s fingers twitch, maybe in surprise, but Bruce doesn’t want to open his eyes to try and read his expression, not right now when things between them feel so oddly tender. Affectionate.

He wouldn’t want to ruin the quasi-romantic guise by looking at them. They want him, and Bruce is sure that he would enjoy being the sole focus of their passion again, but whatever infatuation they have with him is sure to come to an end eventually. Gone just as quickly as it formed. These strange, dangerous men and their peculiar attentions will drift to someone else. They have entered each other’s orbits, but they will fall away soon enough. Bruce never could seem to keep anything for himself. It’s probably better for him to not get too attached to them, anyways, but he wouldn’t mind getting caught up between them once or twice more, even if they were often unsettling and covetous. 

It’s been so long since he’s done anything out of pure selfishness and he may as well make up for lost time. He’ll take what he can get, for however long he can have it. 

They want him. They want to act as if they would keep him. They cannot, because Bruce cannot be kept, but so long as they give him what he wants he could pretend for a night that such a thing wasn’t completely absurd. He nuzzles his face against Jeremiah’s palm. He threads his fingers together with Jerome’s. He opens his eyes.

“Come home with me,” he asks.

It’s really not a surprise when they agree.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter count has officially been upped. The last will be a little book-end, likely similar in length to the first. The next two chapters together are going to be roughly twenty pages of me doing my best to earn the E rating that I decided to give this. Hope I added in enough uncanniness even though, with Bruce able to see this time around, the twins have to be a bit more careful about not slipping up entirely. Enjoy. :)

The cab ride home isn’t so much of a blur as it is an almost cinematic transition from once scene to another. There is kissing—always kissing, as if they could never grow tired of it—and the press of them from either side, and hands constantly roving along his back and shoulders and knees and thighs. He privately thinks it’s amazing that they make it to their destination without doing anything completely indecent, though there had been more than a handful of times where he was sure that one of them—or maybe both of them—was about to slip a hand directly into his pants. 

It’s good that they were practicing some modicum of self-control; because Bruce is clearheaded enough that he knows he’d be mortified if the cab driver looked back and caught sight of something risqué, but he’s also slack enough that he’d let them get away with a lot more than if he were stone-cold sober. 

And he thinks there’s a chance he might remember everything, this time. 

The notion fills him with an eclectic mix of emotions but above all there is a feeling akin to an adrenaline rush, and so he focuses on that instead of anything which might make him trip into second thoughts.

Then they are in the foyer, kicking off their shoes haphazardly once the door closes and locks behind them. Then they are in the hallway, stripping off their jackets and letting them fall to the floor. Then they creep up the stairs, taking what feels like an eternity because there are so many pauses—if one starts touching him then the other is sure to follow, and Bruce doesn’t think he’s gone a full five seconds since the moment Jerome took his injured hand without one of them reaching into his space—and then they are finally right outside of his bedroom door, but Bruce cannot get the handle because he is too distracted by Jeremiah cupping his face and licking into his mouth. 

Bruce lays his hands over top of Jeremiah’s and sighs—god, but he aches; his kiss bruised lips and his sickly, fluttering heart—and when Jerome settles behind him with one hand insistently trailing from Bruce’s hip to his front Bruce cannot stop himself from grinding against his palm. It feels good. It feels familiar. Jerome’s teeth teasingly skim against the entire length his neck. Bruce gasps and jerks—wondering if they mean to tear into him again tonight—as Jerome buries his nose into his hair and inhales deep enough that Bruce can feel his chest expand, like he’s chasing the scent of something. 

“Inside,” he murmurs between Jeremiah’s frantic kisses. “Come inside,” he requests, throwing one hand blindly out towards the door and fumbling with the handle. Jerome’s chest expands with another deep inhalation as he nuzzles his face into Bruce’s hair, almost like a cat trying to imprint its scent upon its owner. 

“How could we refuse such a lovely invitation,” Jeremiah hums languidly, moving his attention to Bruce’s jawline, then further down. The feel of his teeth grazing overtop of the vital blood vessels in his neck makes Bruce’s pulse skyrocket. “From such a lovely boy?” He laves his tongue firmly over a pulse-point, as if he means to gauge the rhythm of Bruce’s heartbeat. His laugh is a high, raspy thing when Bruce jolts, unsure whether he wants to move closer or father away. 

He had been bitten so deeply, last time. The bruises had been grimly astounding. Jeremiah is not a starving beast, but Bruce is somehow sure that he could tear Bruce’s throat out if he wanted.

A high noise—a mortifying whine—seeps out of his mouth before he can lock it in. Jeremiah laughs again, but his attention doesn’t sway from his current pursuit. 

Behind him Jerome seems to grow impatient, and the hand that had been crudely resting over Bruce raises to push his brother back. Jeremiah briefly looks so affronted that Bruce cannot help the soft laugh that escapes as he finally twists the handle. 

The door swings open, and before he can invite them in again Jerome twists him around and settles his hands on the backs of Bruce’s thighs, lifting him up as if he weighed next to nothing. Bruce had never thought a casual display of strength would do anything for him, but he had never expected anything about them—remarkably bizarre, and purposefully menacing at times—to ignite something inside of himself, either. He doesn’t speak the invitation again, once had surely been enough anyway, instead he wraps his legs tightly around Jerome’s hips just as his arms wrap tightly around his shoulders, and he has no time to think of ghosts lurking in dark corners when he finds himself being kissed all over again. 

They cross the threshold. The air around him feels thick, charged with some sort of energy—Bruce had sometimes felt a similar sensation before getting into fights, or before intervening in some kind of wrongdoing—and it’s enough to make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He’s thrown himself into and been unwillingly tangled up in enough peril over the years that even in the midst of this—Jerome kissing him as if he means commit the feel and taste of Bruce to memory, and Jeremiah breathing down his neck as if waiting for an opportune moment to sink teeth into flesh—he cannot ignore the way his instincts are going haywire.

Dangerous men, he muses as he drags a hand through Jerome’s hair, not being as mindful of his nails as he would be with any of the other people he’s kissed. They weren’t a threat to him currently, but in a city like Gotham almost anyone was suspect to turn eventually. 

He feels Jerome react to his scratching—just the slightest pause between kisses, hardly noticeable—and he puts those thoughts on a backburner. He could worry about his bad decisions after he’d gotten what he wanted. Besides, how likely was it that they would end up finding him again?

~~How many times had they found him before? How many instances in time were left blank in Bruce’s memories? Too many, especially now that he’s begun to spiral out of control.~~

Working on intuition alone he takes Jerome’s bottom lip between his teeth and bites—not nearly hard enough to draw blood, a simple experiment to evaluate Jerome’s reaction to rougher treatment—and he’s not disappointed. Wrapped around Jerome as he is he can feel the man shudder, and it makes Bruce feel—

Powerful, in a way. They are not the only ones whose actions have an impact. He, too, is capable of making them want, just as they make him want. 

He loosens his hand from Jerome’s hair but only so that it can blindly dig into Jeremiah’s instead, tugging far harsher than he ever would have expected of himself. But they deserved a bit of rough treatment, didn’t they? They said such strange, possessive things to him, and were almost certainly keeping secrets from him, and acted as though they would bleed him dry if they could get away with it.

And even putting all of that aside he’d felt the skimming of sharp points against his neck, and unlike in a mostly-forgotten nightmare he was capable of moving to ensure that he wasn’t ~~eaten~~ bitten. 

Jeremiah makes an impatient sound, Bruce can feel it rumbling against his back as he’s penned in between them, and his hands grip firmly onto Bruce’s hips. Bruce pulls his hair harder. He can feel Jeremiah’s shaky exhalations against his neck.

They liked that he was stubborn. They liked when he challenged them, when he denied them, when he made them work for it. Perhaps no one had ever resisted them like this before. Perhaps they were too used to getting what they wanted. 

They loved when he gave in to them, obviously, but Bruce wasn’t some swooning romanticist who’d lay back and allow absolutely everything to be taken from him even if he was sure that he’d enjoy it. They’d have to prove that they deserved that level of surrender from him. 

_We’ll be so good to you._

_You’ll never want anyone else._

_Prove it._

“You left some terrible bruises on me last time.” He says, stifled by the press of them from all sides. Surrounded completely, unreachable to anyone but them, and yet not exactly safe. “It would serve you right if I did the same to you.”

“You could try,” Jerome replies, voice hoarse. Bruce wonders if this is the closest he’s ever come to actually asking for something, because while the words themselves might be goading everything else reads as an appeal. Bruce contemplates using that to his advantage somehow—a dark, flickering line of thought makes him speculate about what they sound like when they beg—but those thoughts are put on hold when he is—at long last—pinned down to his bed.

Hands are tugging at his clothes, mouths are pressing against his skin, hot, wet breath is huffed against him as they smother him. Bruce’s heart lodges itself in his throat because there is something almost feral about them, now. Something even more savage and menacing in the way they converge upon him. Perhaps because he is able to see them, this time.

Perhaps because they were holding back, last time. 

Teeth are scraping, nails are raking—on his neck, arms, the portion of his stomach left bare after they’d started pulling up his shirt—and occasionally they apply enough pressure to break skin. His blood is welling up like a sacrificial offering from the thin scratches, one which they are eager to take for themselves. There is a feeling ~~again~~ of being in over his head. Alarm mixing with anticipation—like watching a horror movie and knowing that you will be terrified; wishing to be terrified—and leaving him breathlessly on edge. 

He kisses them, the metallic taste of blood transferring into his own mouth. It reminds him of when he’d touched himself to thoughts of them.

~~Will they pry him open and kiss him inside, too?~~

One of them finally manages to tear his shirt over his head, and before he can grab onto them his wrists are encircled by a tight grip and pinned above him. A hand firmly drags down his sternum, compressing his chest and making it even more difficult to breathe. A mouth latches around his nipple and sucks.

He’s started making a mess of his underwear, he’s sure of it, and yet neither of them are touching him where he wants their attention most of all.

“Get undressed,” he prompts. He hadn’t seen, last time. He wants to see everything, now. He wants to see their eyes as they look at him. He wants to see what he does to them. He wants so much. “Touch me.”

The thought of asking to be let go only crosses his mind for a second before dissipating. 

“How demanding,” Jerome purrs. A hand settles low on Bruce’s abdomen, so close to Bruce’s cock. He presses his weight there instead of where Bruce wants it, but even that somehow makes his toes curl as he spreads his legs wider. “We’re already touching you.”

Jeremiah hums in agreement, sucking a series of bruises along Bruce’s chest.

“You should be careful what you ask for,” he says, too much humour in his tone to be normal, looking up at Bruce from under his eyelashes. “You’ll give us free reign to touch you however we want, otherwise.” There’s something sparking in the depths of eyes that Bruce distantly finds unnerving, but he’s already disregarded so many warning signs; the biting and bruising, the possessive nature of their touches and their words. He can’t put a stop to it now.

He needs this. Needs them. 

“Touch me more,” Bruce says, unrelenting. “I know you want to. Don’t try to deny it.”

“Deny it?” Jerome presses his lips to the corner of Bruce’s mouth. It’s outlandishly chaste compared to his other kisses, except perhaps for his kiss to Bruce’s split knuckles. “No. We never deny anything.” His hand slips a little further up, but only so that he can start sliding his fingers down the front of Bruce’s pants. “We are unabashedly selfish creatures, my brother and I. There is no shame in admitting it or in taking what we want.”

“And we want you,” Jeremiah whispers into Bruce’s ear. His fingers wrap tighter around Bruce’s wrist. Bruce wonders if he plans on keeping his hands bound all night. Wonders what it would feel like to be completely at his mercy. Wonders what it would be like to turn the tables on him and bind his hands together instead. “We’ve wanted you for ages,” his voice converts into a hiss. He kicks a leg over Bruce’s own and presses right up against Bruce’s hip.

~~How long was an age? How long had they wanted him?~~

Bruce can feel his cock through the layers of fabric which separates their bodies, and the need for them to strip sparks inside of him all over again.

He wants to see. Wants to touch. Wants to—

Jerome’s fingers brush against the wet tip of him and Bruce jerks.

—taste. 

“Get undressed, I want to see you.” He turns his face, kissing whichever parts of them that are in reach of his mouth. “Please?” He allows something soft to coat his tone, a delicate covering hiding the steel beneath. They want him, and they will give in to him, he just has to give them something in return. They loved his defiance, but they undoubtedly hungered for him to be swayed by their charms enough to give in to them completely. “Let me see you. I didn’t get to last time.”

“That is true,” Jeremiah muses, his grip on Bruce’s wrists starting to loosen as he ruts against Bruce’s hip. There’s a curious deliberation to the motion—a slow, shallow rocking—as if he’s trying to figure out whether or not he actually likes it. Then he curls tighter around Bruce, wedging his other leg beneath Bruce’s to force them even closer together. That is when Jeremiah’s breath hitches, that is when his movements become more like Bruce thought they would be—frantic, like his kisses. 

Jeremiah lets go of Bruce’s wrists and somehow, even though his legs are clamped around Bruce like a vice, he begins to take off his shirt. Bruce would help if he could, but between the feeling of Jeremiah digging into his side, and Jerome’s fingers playfully grazing over him, and the open-mouthed kisses from both, his hands have lost what seems to be most of their coordination. 

“You too,” he tells Jerome.

“Fine, fine,” Jerome concedes with a razor-sharp chortle. He takes his hand off of Bruce and laps theatrically at his fingertips before calmly taking off his own shirt and throwing it off the side of his bed. Then, locking eyes with Bruce, he unfastens his belt. Then he drags down the fly of his pants, letting the fabric pool around his knees. Then he presses the hand that had been teasing Bruce against the swell of his cock, visible even through his underwear, and winks. “Better?”

Bruce licks his lips. As if it weren’t difficult enough to concentrate with Jeremiah ceaselessly grinding against him. “Better,” he says, then, “more.”

Jerome clucks his tongue. “Greedy thing,” he coos, and it sounds much more like praise than a reprimand. He slips a leg between Bruce’s own, somehow managing not to kneel directly on his brother. They work well together. Bruce spares a thought that they might often do this sort of thing as a unit and he’s not sure if he has the right to find it repulsive, all things considered. Jerome braces one hand against the bed beside Bruce’s shoulder and leans in. Closer and closer. And then Bruce can feel his erection, too, hard and heavy against him. He’s trapped between the pair of them and he wants, he wants, he wants. “What shall we do with you?”

“Fuck me,” Bruce breathes, hitching his hips, grinding himself against Jerome’s muscled thigh. He wants what he wants, and he wants it now. No teasing and toying. No chance for them to draw it out until he was mindlessly begging. They want it just as much as he does but the urge to spur them on, just to be sure that they gave him exactly what he needed, was strong.

He belongs to no one but himself, but…

He could pretend, if that’s what they craved from him.

“Fuck me,” he repeats. “Show me that I’m yours.” 

“Oh, Bruce,” Jeremiah huffs into his ear. He sounds like he’s on the verge of laughter, which is not at all what Bruce had wanted. Maybe he realized that Bruce was trying to egg them on and found it funny. “Don’t you realize that you already are?”

The instinctive protest dies on his tongue when Jeremiah constricts around him and bites into the meat of his shoulder. Jerome swallows his cry—is it pain, or is it something else? He cannot be sure, not with how every point of contact between himself and them is lit up and sparking dangerously—and sucks Bruce’s tongue into his mouth.

“You were made to be ours, sweetheart.” Jeremiah tells him, unwinding his legs from around Bruce. Bruce can feel the flutter of his hands as he undoes his own belt. He makes a muffled sound against Jerome’s mouth, and Jerome’s shoulders start to shake with silent mirth. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Nothing about this made sense. It was all just a madness that Bruce was deciding to temporarily embrace because he deserved some selfish teenaged normality. 

~~Nothing about them was normal.~~

“You were fashioned in such a way that we would be drawn to you.” Jeremiah speaks as if he and his brother were some sort of two-for-one package. How many lovers had they shared? How many people had found themselves trapped between them, just as Bruce was? How many times had they sunk their physical and metaphorical teeth into the same person? “There’s a connection between us.” A bare knee nudges playfully against Bruce’s leg. “You feel it, don’t you?”

Jerome pulls back, eyes mesmerizing enough that Bruce forgets what he means to say in response to Jeremiah’s prodding. A thread of saliva connects their mouths, at least until Jerome licks his lips and breaks it. 

“Don’t you, Brucie?” He cradles Bruce’s jaw, eerily tender, fingers lightly skimming over the mottling bruise acquired in the fight at the club. Bruce spares a few moments to consider whether or not they—who were so particular about biting and scratching and bruising him up—were jealous that someone else had left their mark, right on his face where the whole world could see. His thoughts are so caught up by this too-likely possibility that Bruce doesn’t answer. Jerome, still gentle—for them, anyways—begins to press down on the sides of his face until Bruce’s mouth is forced open. “I think we’ll have to _prove it_ , brother.”

_Prove it._

~~Did we prove it, Bruce?~~

Jeremiah hums, hovering into Bruce’s field of view. For one hair-raising moment Bruce thinks that one of them is going to spit into his mouth—his insides clench at the idea, at the degradation, at the fact that he’s not actually sure how he would react if it happened—but instead Jeremiah pushes two fingers inside. Bruce cannot close his lips around the digits, not with the way Jerome is keeping him open, but Jeremiah seems content with just shallowly thrusting them against Bruce’s tongue, gradually going deeper every few passes until Bruce feels as though he may start to gag.

“We’ll prove it to you, precious,” Jeremiah promises darkly, stilling his fingers and merely pressing down. “We have all night, after all.”

Sickly anticipation and desire flutter inside of him. Fuck, he wants this so badly. 

Above him the twins draw in deep breaths. Their smiles afterwards are knowing and sharp.

“All night,” Jerome echoes. Then he lets go of Bruce’s jaw.

And then they are kissing, again. And they are tugging him out of his clothes, again. And they are moving him around, again. ~~Their hands move so fast that sometimes it feels like they have more than what is humanly possible.~~ And—

And Bruce could do without the ominous mention of a connection, and their threatening aura, and their general unpredictability, but…

“Fuck,” he curses, hands fisting in the sheets in front of him. Behind him Jerome chuckles, low and rough, and he spreads Bruce’s cheeks wider apart as he circles his tongue around before delving inside a second time. 

“Charming,” Jeremiah remarks. Bruce doesn’t know if he means it to be mocking or not, but he’s petting his hair in a gentle way ~~that reminds Bruce of the moments between sleeping and waking~~ so he’s guessing the comment is genuine. He is kneeling beside Bruce, and out of the corner of his eye Bruce can see his blood-flushed cock, but he seems content to focus all of his attention on Bruce instead of touching himself.

If Bruce were not already on the verge of collapse he would take him in hand. Wrap his fingers around him, feel the weight of him against his palm, watch Jeremiah’s face as he touched him. But he can hardly support himself as it is with Jerome eating him out as if he’s been fantasizing about this since the last time they were together. 

He thinks, dizzy and aching, about the sensation of Jeremiah’s fingers in his mouth. If he would just move to kneel in front of Bruce, then maybe Bruce could—

He grits his teeth against a yelp as Jerome abruptly pushes two fingers in alongside his tongue.

“Careful, brother,” Jeremiah chides, his tone is laced with dark amusement. “We don’t want to break him.”

“No one’s—” Bruce stops and groans. The ache of Jerome’s haste is enough to make his erection start to flag, even as it stirs the carnal need inside of him. It’s as if he wants more than his body can actually handle. Was that normal? Was this a normal thing, or was he still destined to be an abnormality even when it came to his desires? He thinks about how it had felt to have his skin split open by their amorous touches and kisses, and he presses his burning face against the cool sheets in an attempt to collect his thoughts. “You won’t break me, didn’t I—didn’t I tell you this already?” Even if these two made him feel like no one else could, they were such unrepentant bastards sometimes. He wishes he knew how to punish them for it. “I’m not made of glass. Just be careful.” 

Jerome drags his tongue away, licking a path partway up Bruce’s back. 

“Hard to stay in control with you right here, darlin’,” Jerome tells him. He presses kisses along Bruce’s spine. His lips feel rough, oddly raised and irregular, but Bruce has more important things to worry about with the way his fingers continue to drag unpleasantly inside of him. “Opening up so nice for me.”

“You’ll hurt me if you go too fast.”

“I wouldn’t hurt you in a way that you didn’t want to be hurt,” Jerome rumbles. “Most likely,” he amends, voice laden with hoarse laughter that sends a chill down Bruce’s spine. “What’s a little maiming between lovers? I’d stop short of killing you, in any case.”

~~“If I wanted to hurt you, you would know it.”~~

But his fingers slowly draw back until Bruce almost feels like he can breathe normally again. 

Almost, because the offhand implication—was it a threat, or was it a promise?—churns up his anxiety and paranoia and outrage.

“Here,” Jeremiah bids sharply before Bruce can become so overwhelmed by the surge that he actually decides to call this entire thing off. He shoots an ominous look over Bruce’s shoulder before he helps Bruce up, then starts to slip in front of him. “I’ll take your mind off of the ache.” At first Bruce thinks he’s going to suggest that they touch each other but he keeps moving until his body is underneath Bruce’s. He lays himself out, legs splayed on either side of Bruce’s hips. 

Bruce’s breath hitches.

“Like—like rubbing against you?” He feels flush at the thought of it; grinding against Jeremiah’s naked cock, feeling it against his own. He could come like that.

The negative storm kicked up by Jerome’s flippant statements begins to abate. 

“No Bruce, my darling.” Jeremiah taps his fingers against his lips and Bruce obediently opens his mouth, too entranced at what Jeremiah might be offering to make him work for it. He pulls away quicker than Bruce expected, and he trails his slick fingers down between them.

Bruce watches raptly as Jeremiah presses both fingers inside of himself without so much as a flicker of pain reflecting in his face. 

“Let me make you feel good,” Jeremiah offers. 

“You deserve it,” Jerome tells him, shallowly rocking the tips of his fingers in and out. He’s pressing kisses up Bruce’s spine, slowly stretching out over top of him. “Embrace your selfish nature, darlin’.” He scrapes his teeth along the crook of Bruce’s neck. Bruce can feel his cock brush against his ass and it momentarily punches the breath out of his lungs. “Life is much more fun when you take what you want without apologizing for it.” He retreats, biting and sucking a line of marks down Bruce’s back as he goes. “And we have so much we want to give you.” 

Jeremiah pulls Bruce down, something more like a smirk than a smile on his mouth as he says, “You’ve been such a good boy for us.”

“I’ll hurt you,” Bruce protests. He means to say more, he even means to mention the condoms that he’d taken to keeping in his wallet, but then Jeremiah is wrapping a hand around his cock and guiding it towards the ring of muscle that his fingers had vacated. He feels wet—maybe he had fingered himself open earlier, after the first time that he’d slickened his fingers in Bruce’s mouth. Bruce shudders as he thinks about it. He doesn’t know how he could have missed that. He worries that it wasn’t nearly enough preparation for what Jeremiah was suggesting. 

Just because he sometimes felt the urge to be rough with them didn’t mean he actually wanted to injure them. 

“Nonsense. Nothing has ever hurt us,” Jeremiah tells him so plainly that Bruce can’t parse out whether or not he’s lying to make Bruce feel better or he honestly thinks that he and Jerome are invulnerable. Bruce’s cock slides against his cleft and Jeremiah shifts against him. “Would you rather I take the lead on this?” He sounds as though he’s holding back some delighted chortling. Bruce tries not to take it personally, since they laugh all the time. “You’re shaking.” 

“This is fine,” Bruce rasps. He braces his hands on either side of Jeremiah’s head and, hyperaware of Jerome’s breath on his back and the way his mouth and fingers have momentarily stalled, allows Jeremiah’s hand to move him back into position. He starts slowly pressing in—

“Next time, then.” Jeremiah says, wrapping his legs around Bruce’s hips. “Next time I’ll pin you down and ride you until you’re crying, sweetheart.” 

He pulls Bruce in abruptly, forcing him down until their pelvises are flush and Bruce can feel the wet head of Jeremiah’s cock pressed tightly against his stomach. 

Bruce whines and buries his head into Jeremiah’s shoulder. He’s so tight. Bruce doesn’t understand how going so fast hadn’t seemed to make him uncomfortable when Bruce hadn’t been able to tolerate Jerome’s hasty treatment. He tries to stay still to give Jeremiah and himself time to adjust, tries to even his breathing and calm his rattling heart, but behind him Jerome’s patience seems to have worn out. 

Two fingers press in to the knuckle before a tongue joins them. Bruce jerks forward at the painful intrusion then tries to hastily retreat, breath catching in his throat at the sensation of his cock dragging. It hurts. It’s too much. He wants more. He wants everything even if it leaves him sore and crying. Jeremiah sighs and wraps his arms securely around him, keeping Bruce locked against him. Locked inside of him. 

“There, there,” Jeremiah whispers, he presses a kiss to the side of Bruce’s face as his nails dig into Bruce’s back. Bruce tries to look at him, but all he can see from the corner of his eye are red, red lips and a wide, wide smile. “You can’t hurt me without meaning to hurt me.”

His breath hitches again. There was something—something familiar, something wrong—

Jeremiah rocks up against him and Bruce turns his face into his shoulder again ~~he doesn’t want to look, doesn’t want to see~~ to muffle the embarrassing sound that he makes. He thrusts his hips, slow and shallow, feeling tender and weak. Heat is building up within him—Jeremiah’s body is clamped around him, his cock is leaving a sticky trail along his skin. Jerome is relentless, sighing breathily like he can’t get enough—even if the stretch is more than just uncomfortable. The affinity for pain that they seem to inspire in him is returning again, and he’s sure he’s going to embarrass himself by spilling inside of Jeremiah almost immediately. Jerome bites his hip while adding a third finger in place of his tongue, and while the additional sting helps to curb his acceleration it isn’t enough to stop it entirely. 

Maybe it even spurs it on. They always make him feel so mixed up, it’s difficult to tell.

And to think that he’d been the one demanding this outcome. 

A whine—dull microphone feedback—starts ringing in his ears. He can hardly move, he’s tucked so tightly between them, but every time he does electricity runs through him, burning him up and making his muscles twitch. The contact of their skin against his own leaves him feeling even more responsive, and they’re touching him nearly everywhere. 

“He’s taking it so well,” Jerome mumbles, kissing the broken skin. His lips still feel ~~scarred~~ rough. Bruce wonders if he’d been biting them, or if his mind was playing tricks on him.

~~Red lips. Scarred lips. Too wide smiles. Too sharp teeth.~~

He rolls his hips, feels Jeremiah’s pleased exhale ruffle his hair. He arcs his back, feels the angle of Jerome’s fingers change. He feels so full, but he thinks he wants even more.

“Because he’s ours, remember?” Jeremiah gently runs a hand through his curls. “We just have to prove it to him,” he laughs. It is not a nice laugh.

Neither is the one that answers it.

Bruce digs his teeth into Jeremiah’s shoulder and sucks. It’s not enough to break skin but it is sure to bruise, and he’s vindictively pleased with the way Jeremiah gasps and squirms, the way he can feel Jeremiah’s cock leaking against him. Then Jerome’s fingers shift again.

White hot sparks. A pressure that he’d never felt before swiftly rising and releasing. His toes curl and his body thrashes like a live wire. Every point of contact now bleeds hotly into him as he moves, gasping and writhing between their bodies as the wave breaks just as quickly as it had overwhelmed him in the first place. 

He goes lax between them, fighting to catch his breath as Jerome pulls his fingers free. The dull whine in his ears is back, and through it he thinks he hears Jerome drawl, in a sing-song voice, “found it,” as he rubs teasing circles around the spot that now feels so terribly empty. 

If he had the energy to he’d turn around and hit him.

He breathes heavily against Jeremiah’s already bruising skin and dimly recognizes that it seems much paler now, a fascinating trick of the moonlight streaming in through the curtains.

“Looking a little out of control, brother,” Jerome’s voice washes over him. Bruce almost feels like lifting his head, almost, just so he can see what Jeremiah looks like. He’s still hard against Bruce’s stomach, but the way he’d reacted to being bitten makes Bruce hope that he’s at least a little flustered. 

“You should talk,” Jeremiah snidely responds, his arms wrap around Bruce even tighter as he presses kiss after kiss into Bruce’s hair. “There now, how do you feel? Ready for more?”

God, more. He’d asked—or rather, demanded—to be fucked, but in the aftermath of an orgasm that surprisingly didn’t end in hypersensitivity and tears on his part he sort of just wants to be held for a while. That seems like a juvenile request in comparison to what’s just happened, though, so he keeps that request locked firmly behind his teeth.

Jeremiah rolls them over, pressing Bruce onto his back and sitting astride his hips. He must have moved out of the moonbeams that had bleached skin white because he looks as he always does, with the slight exception of the flush across his cheeks. His eyes gleam as strangely as ever and Jerome slumps beside him, casually throwing an arm over his twin’s shoulders.

His lips do not look rough and bitten.

But his smile does seem unnaturally wide. 

~~Didn’t it always, though?~~

“You’re going to overwhelm him,” Jerome says conversationally. He appears overly pleased with himself, but thankfully he otherwise doesn’t look entirely unaffected. If the both of them looked cool and composed right now, well, Bruce might take more offense to that than some of the terrible things that they’ve said to him. 

“I’m not overwhelmed,” Bruce protests, a few seconds too late.

They share a glance with each other.

“Come on, let’s get him riled up all over again.” Jerome angles a peculiar look at him, and Bruce tries very hard not to react to it. “You’re like putty in our hands, Brucie.”

“Stop calling me that,” Bruce grumbles, cheeks burning. Jerome snickers and stretches to lay out beside him, toying with Bruce’s hair and staring at him with far too much intent to be polite. The both of them are interpersonal catastrophes waiting to happen. “The pair of you were never properly socialized as children, were you?”

They both bark out a startled laugh.

“Didn’t have anyone to socialize us,” Jerome tells him, and Bruce winces at the implication. “There’s no need to feel bad about it.” He traces a thumb across Bruce’s mouth and tugs the corner up at the edge; a transient smile. Then he turns his attention back to playing with Bruce’s hair. “We turned out just as we were meant to be, and we haven’t been children for a long, long time.”

Bruce supposes that most kids who grow up without parents grow up a little too quickly. He certainly didn’t feel his age. Of course, he’d faced a lot more hardship than just losing his parents. Therein lay the root of all of his problems. He’d survived everything the world threw at him and stubbornly stuck to the path that he had set himself out on. Things would have been so different if he had not been so iron-willed. 

“No more talk of the past.” Jeremiah leans down to brush his lips against Bruce’s cheek. What’s happening right now isn’t exactly cuddling, but it’s close enough, and Bruce feels himself being soothed by their perpetual nearness. They were so predictable, in some ways. Always invading his personal space. 

Shielding him from the whole world; everything and everyone except for themselves. 

Greedy bastards. 

Bruce might actually kind of like them.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I surprise myself, fffffff.
> 
> Also, just a little **additional warning** for this chapter although it is nothing that should be terribly surprising in this AU. Various circumstances cause Bruce to recall parts of his nightmare while stuff is going on; Jerome and Jeremiah can tell he's starting to freak out but they're really into it so they don't do, y'know, the nice thing and ask if he's okay. Bruce'll get a bit of aftercare though, because they may be monsters but they've gone out of their way to get some idea of how to take care of their absolute favourite human. 
> 
> Can't believe we're almost at the end. The last chapter really just needs to be edited, so I imagine it'll be up sometime tomorrow. As always, enjoy!

Bruce feels his chest twinge as Jeremiah nips at his lips, as Jerome huffs into his neck while grazing his teeth against the skin that they had both punctured the time before this. At this rate half of his body is going to turn into a tender bruise. He’s gotten into fights and come out less blemished than this. He’s lost fights and ended up with less cuts and discolourations. It’s like they’re trying to imprint themselves upon him however they can. 

Trying to brand him. 

He should probably get angry about it, but he still feels fluttery from his first orgasm and is very distracted by the press of them against him. They both want him so badly. They’re both so persistent. Bruce could get lost in the space between them—as if he was meant to fill some sort of void—and he might even ~~be happy to never be found again~~ enjoy trying to find out how their mismatched edges slot together.

Jerome pulls away from his neck. His pupils are so dilated that his irises appear almost fully black. The skin around his eyes looks unnaturally dark, especially when compared to the rest of his unnaturally pale face. There are multiple raised lines like scars—

Bruce blinks. 

His irises are almost fully black, and his smile is too wide, but there is nothing else strange about the way that he looks except for the way it is igniting a fire inside of Bruce. 

“Darlin’,” he drawls, slinking down the bed and making a place for himself between Bruce’s legs by pushing his knees apart. “Tell us what you want.”

Bruce’s face burns.

“I already did.”

“Tell us again,” Jeremiah bids, eyes hooded. He’s grinding against Bruce’s hip against—he must be so close, fuck, he must be aching—and Bruce’s hands twitch with the desire to touch him. 

Jerome’s nails skim playful streaks along the back of Bruce’s thighs.

“Come on, Brucie. Be a good boy and tell us exactly what you want.” Jerome presses a kiss to one of Bruce’s knees, then to the other. His grin is as keen edged as any knife Bruce has ever seen. “No need to play coy. We’ll give you everything you want, and more.” He laughs hoarsely again, reminiscent of when he’d spoken about maiming lovers and stopping before Bruce was killed. “I’ll even tell you something that I want, if it’ll help. I want.” He pauses dramatically, eyes roving over Bruce’s entire body. “To have you on your back. I want to watch your face. I want to see if I can make you get teary eyed.” He opens his mouth, tongue lolling out, and wets his fingers in a display that should probably be more gross than it is arousing, but Bruce obviously has some wires crossed somewhere when it involves what he finds sexy. “How about you?”

“I want that. And I want—” He gazes over at Jeremiah whose smile should probably instill a sense of panic instead of making him ache, and yet. “—I want to touch you. Can I touch you? With my hand.” And maybe his mouth, if he could work up the nerve to say it.

The both of them chuckle, but it sounds pleased.

“Greedy boy,” Jerome praises again, and before Bruce can refute the claim his fingers are rubbing a slick path along his perineum. “There must be more. Tell us more.”

“Make me,” he challenges. Jerome’s eyes spark. Bruce feels like someone could get hypnotized just looking at his eyes. Drawn into the depths of him, unable to escape. 

~~Unable to run. Too caught up in the glowing eyes of a predator to realize the danger until it was far too late to get away.~~

“We will.”

Three fingers press inside, but the ache isn’t nearly as sharp as it was before. It won’t be long, now, until it is something other than fingers or a tongue filling him up. The knowledge makes his blood rush as he latches onto Jeremiah’s arm and tugs.

He thinks they murmur something to each other, indistinct but undoubtedly lewd, before Jeremiah obligingly moves up high enough on the bed that Bruce can finally wrap his fingers around him. 

The sound Jeremiah makes bleeds into his own moan as Jerome darts down to lap his tongue against Bruce’s slowly firming cock.

“That’s good,” Jeremiah tells him, humping into his hand. “Tighter, yes. Just like that.” He reaches out to trace against the bruises that he’d left on Bruce’s chest, then pinches a nipple firmly between his fingers and twists. He shifts until he’s practically kneeling beside Bruce’s face, and Bruce can’t seem to stop himself from staring at the hard, flushed skin in his grasp.

Jerome mumbles something, lightly biting the inside of Bruce’s thigh as his fingers continue their zealous pursuit; going deep before withdrawing almost all the way, brazenly rubbing just inside the rim as if to coax Bruce’s body into loosening, twisting as they force their way back in. He kisses one of Bruce’s hipbones and his cheek drags against Bruce’s sensitive skin as his head ducks down. His fingers draw back until only the tips are inside and his tongue wetly licks at the place where they are connected. When his fingers slam back inside their path is slick and easy, and he stops pulling them most of the way out.

Bruce is pretty sure he curses again. He thinks he might be losing his mind. His hand works over Jeremiah’s cock faster. He stares at the gleaming wet head and wants to know what he tastes like, but he can’t bear to pull his hand away to shamelessly lick his fingers like Jerome had earlier.

“I want—” he rasps, lurching. The tip of Jerome’s tongue is plunging in with his fingers. Jeremiah’s hand is petting over his wild heart. He turns his head, pressing his lips to Jeremiah’s leg in a move so artless that it cannot even count as a kiss. “I want you in my mouth. I’ve never—I can’t take it all.” His face feels like it’s on fire. “Just a little. I want to know what you taste like.”

“Bruce, sweetheart,” Jeremiah pants. “You precious thing.” He fists his hands into Bruce’s hair. He throws a leg over Bruce’s shoulder. He’s straddling his chest and Bruce’s arms are pinned by his weight. He looks up at Jeremiah’s raging eyes and lets his mouth fall open. Beyond his line of sight Jerome’s tongue is drawing back even as his fingers continue to drive inside of him. And then he hooks his chin over Jeremiah’s shoulder, the both of them staring down at Bruce’s hot face and open, waiting, wanting mouth. It makes him flush even harder, to be viewed so openly like this. It makes him want to squirm.

“Gorgeous,” they say together, the now-familiar note in their tone makes it obvious that they mean to say ‘ours’.

Jeremiah shifts his hips forward, his thick fingers wrapping around his thick cock. The leaking head traces a tacky line along Bruce’s lower lip before he thrusts shallowly inside. He is bigger than his fingers, hotter than his fingers, better than his fingers. Bruce seals his lips around him, trying to be mindful of his teeth, and his eyes flutter closed. 

He can feel Jeremiah’s hand brushing against his lips as he strokes himself, he can feel Jeremiah’s hips rock forward, feeding more and more into his mouth until Bruce can hardly breathe. He can hear Jeremiah praising him under his breath. Can hear Jerome goading them both on. Can hear the slick sounds that are produced by every motion the twins make; whether it is Jerome’s fingers moving inside of him or Jeremiah fucking his mouth. 

Fucking his mouth.

Fuck, he’s burning up. 

His eyes flutter open again, vision hazy. His ears are ringing. They’re saying something, but he doesn’t understand. His head is full of microphone feedback—a high pitched whine—it hurts to listen to—his heart is in his throat and he must be hearing things, seeing things, because at the edges of his vision they look different and wrong but when he looks directly at them they appear as they should ~~as they mean to~~. Strange things happen in his peripherals, even more so than the way their faces seem to shift and change when they’re not entirely in focus. The shadows in the corners of his room are darkening and spreading, and all at once he remembers how often he feels as though he is being watched. He locks eyes with Jeremiah, forcing all of his attention onto him. His irises are just as black as his brother’s, just as hypnotic. Bruce could get lost in those eyes without meaning or wanting to, but at least when he’s looking at them he can’t see anything else, his eyes can’t play tricks on him—

His mouth is flooded; a hot, sticky, salty mess that leaks out the corners and down his chin even as he struggles to swallow. He thinks he’d hate it completely if it weren’t for the fact that it was from Jeremiah. He coughs, hyperaware of the weight of their gaze and foolishly hoping that the sight of him like this—filthy and marked—makes their hearts race. 

The ringing in his ears stops. Jeremiah is crooning praise at him. Is running his hands though Bruce’s hair. Is actually leaning down for a kiss even though there’s no way he isn’t able to taste himself on Bruce’s lips and mouth. It should be disgusting, shouldn’t it? It isn’t normal at all, is it?

But, then again, normal wasn’t what Bruce wanted. Normal wasn’t something that Bruce would ever be. Perhaps he should stop wishing that he could be ordinary and conventional when it was pretty clear that, had he been ordinary, he would have never attracted their attention like this in the first place.

~~Ten years ago he’d attracted attention the first time for reasons other than the delectable mouthful that he would make. Back when his concern had trounced his fear and he’d rubbed a cold hand between his palms in an attempt to offer heat. When he’d pressed his lips to the back of a hand with a sweet gentleness that had never been felt before.~~

Jerome shoves Jeremiah aside. Jeremiah goes, but only after licking so deeply into Bruce’s mouth that—were it actually possible—it feels as if he’s actually reached the back of Bruce’s throat.

 ~~Five years ago he’d attracted attention again. The dredges of a memory of piercing, unblinking eyes making him unknowingly remarkable to one who had a matching set, for they were meant to be fully forgotten.~~

Jerome leans over him and Bruce hisses out a warning of, “don’t you dare,” before Jerome has a chance to kiss him. Jerome sighs, as if he doesn’t understand Bruce’s aversion even though they are all acutely aware of where his mouth has been. He doesn’t kiss him, but he does lick a firm path up Bruce’s neck. Jeremiah’s fingers are still running through his hair, as if he can’t stand to keep his hands to himself. As if he can’t bear to let Bruce forget that he is still there, watching. 

Bruce wonders, again, just how many people they’ve shared like this. If any of the ones that they’ve ~~hunted~~ seduced have been as weird and vulgar as he obviously is. 

~~If he had been normal he would have disappeared like all those other missing kids; horrified and alone before being ended by rows upon rows of too many razor teeth. One meal among an innumerable sum. Easily forgotten once the hunger swarmed them again.~~

He feels the blunt head of Jerome’s cock press against him, and his thoughts about conventionality and faceless sex partners smothered between two bodies ~~in the place where Bruce is meant to fit~~ dissolve into static. Jerome grips at his hips, pulling Bruce up the slope of his thighs, edging further in with far more restraint than Bruce would have thought he was capable of. He advances, pauses, and pulls back a fraction. Jeremiah cups his cheek and guides his head to the side to kiss him again. His hands rove over Bruce’s upper body. He starts whispering in Bruce’s ear too lowly for Bruce to make out what he’s saying. Above him Jerome advances again, pauses, pulls back. There’s a sparking friction as he retreats, as if Bruce’s body is trying to latch onto him. Even if he’s being careful each movement makes Bruce’s chest hitch. How had Jeremiah taken him so easily? Bruce feels like he’s on the verge of being split open.

Undoubtedly they’d kiss the fissures left behind if he were. Bloody, hungry mouths roving over him, tearing into him even more. Breaking him open and kissing him everywhere. What was a little maiming between lovers, as long as they stopped short of killing him?

His eyes are stinging again by the time Jerome’s pelvis rests flush against his ass. He can’t move, can’t speak, can barely even breathe—

A nightmare flashes behind his closed eyes. A rabbit caught in a snare, desperately wishing that he were lonely again. The sharp teeth of a predator against him. Drool dripping onto his skin. 

The door had opened, and he’d seen—

~~Something too terrifying to be a clown.~~

His body goes tense, pulse jumping. Beside him Jeremiah inhales and groans as if he’s the one seizing Bruce’s body. 

“Unholy hell, Brucie, you smell so good,” Jerome says as he drapes his entire body over Bruce, lips grazing against his cheeks. Bruce can’t seem to open his eyes. ~~Doesn’t want to see what he’d seen at the edges of his vision. The scarred and painted faces that brought out some instinctive desire to get as far away as he could.~~ Jerome’s heavily chapped mouth rasps against his skin. It feels wrong, feels wrong, feels wrong—

~~He’d been fenced in by them. They had been reaching for him. They wanted him.~~

Jerome moans, hips rolling. “What are you thinking about,” he slurs. His fingers, when they dig into Bruce’s sides, are freezing. Despite this Bruce’s skin seems to burn at the contact. “Your heart is racing.” He pulls back slightly before thrusting forward hard. The feeling of it punches a whine out of Bruce’s throat. “Wish I could kiss you there, too. Bet you’d be so pretty, so warm.” He rolls his hips again as if he wishes he could go deeper, even though Bruce cannot possibly take any more. “I bet biting through your flesh would be like biting into something sweet.”

They’ve already bitten him. Already broken skin. What could he possibly mean by that? What more could he possibly want?

~~Whatever was behind him was hungry. He hadn’t been sure how he knew that, but he did.~~

“Are you thinking about us, Bruce?” Jeremiah breathes into his ear, lips skimming the cartilage. “You’re thinking about us, aren’t you?”

No.

~~Yes.~~

He forces his eyes open. His vision is blurry with unshed tears. He can’t seem to shake the nightmare off. It lurks in the back of his mind, driving him into a panic. He doesn’t know what he would say even if he could speak.

There’s a weight on his chest. He thinks he’s broken out into a cold sweat.

Jerome presses their foreheads together as he fucks into Bruce harder and faster than before, clearly no longer bothering to restrain himself. His eyes are unblinking, staring at Bruce as if he means to memorize the sight of him. His nostrils are flared as if he’s scenting something. His mouth is open, drool slicking his lower lip before it drips down onto Bruce. He’s wild and savage ~~predatory~~ , but Bruce can’t seem to look away. Can’t break the gaze, not even to look at Jeremiah.

Jerome’s cock brushes against the spot that had made him light up before, back when it was only Jerome’s fingers touching him there, and even through his apprehension Bruce feels his body respond to it. His heart is beating too loudly in his ears to hear what he says, or what Jerome says, or what Jeremiah says. Jerome’s hands pull his hips up higher, forcing him into an angle, and when he fucks into Bruce he hits the spot again and Bruce’s entire body clenches down on him. His legs spasm around Jerome’s hips. His cock jerks between their bodies. Jerome’s stare is an unnerving thing that makes Bruce’s insides twist with dread, among too many other things to count or put a name to—good and bad and wonderful and terrible—but he cannot look away.

~~Like watching a horror movie and knowing you will be terrified; wanting to be terrified, dreading being terrified.~~

His mouth opens. He thinks he might be trying to scream. Jerome shudders, his wild eyes fluttering shut for the first time that Bruce can recall, his hips snapping forward and pelvis striking against Bruce’s ass with enough power to leave him feeling nearly battered.

~~The nightmare morphs. The monsters are wearing familiar faces.~~

His entire body rocks with the force of Jerome’s onslaught. He wouldn’t be able to pull away even if he tried. He wouldn’t want to pull away. He’s spent weeks feeling numb, but now he feels so much, so much, so much—

~~There was never any chance of him escaping their clawed, greedy hands.~~

The burning, twisting pressure inside of him reaches a new height and Bruce is abruptly pushed from the edge. His vision goes dark at the edges as the wave crashes over him, as Jerome grinds against him, as wet heat coats the skin of his stomach just as it pours inside of him.

Jerome shudders but continues to fuck into him as he comes. He tenderly rests a hand against the bruising on Bruce’s jaw and kisses just beside his mouth, obediently following Bruce’s earlier order not to kiss his mouth directly. It’s oddly sweet.

~~Surely a monster wouldn’t kiss him like this. Surely a monster would take advantage.~~

Bruce inhales sharply. Jerome kisses his cheek, his hairline, the center of his forehead. He murmurs sweet nothings and encouragements under his breath.

~~Surely a monster would have cracked open his ribs by now to take his hammering heart into its starving maw.~~

The nightmare dissipates. Jerome slips out of him. The sheets beneath Bruce are soaked, and not just with his sweat. He feels slick. He feels empty. His cheeks are wet with tears.

Jeremiah is panting hotly in his ear. 

“Can I, Bruce?” He rasps. “Can I?”

~~Surely a monster wouldn’t ask. Surely a monster would only take.~~

He cannot seem to speak—perhaps he had been screaming after all while he was caught in the grip of the waking nightmare, and his vocal chords were strained from overuse—but he does manage a nod. That’s enough for Jeremiah, who scoops Bruce into his arms as he sits up, back braced against the headboard of the bed. He’s hard again, Bruce can feel it. He doesn’t understand how he’d managed so quickly. It was as if they were feeding off of him. They gave him pleasure and they took it back into themselves, creating some sort of depraved feedback loop. Jeremiah had been huffing into Bruce’s hair as Jerome fucked him, breathing with his mouth open as if he were trying to get a taste of the scent that Jerome had mentioned. 

It makes Bruce think of pheromones, of heats, of ruts. Primitive and animalistic. Feral and predatory.

It suits them, these untamable entities. 

Jeremiah cradles him in his arms and slowly guides Bruce down onto his cock. There is a dim, distant sort of pleasure in the feeling. Bruce doubts he’ll get hard again, but he revels in the nearness and intimacy. 

The expanding shadows in the corners have gone back to normal. Nothing can get to him when he is with them. They wouldn’t allow it, surely. 

“So warm inside,” Jeremiah says under his breath. “So perfect. I wish we had more time left. We should have been doing this since we woke up.”

An entire day of this? Bruce isn’t sure he’d survive it. He drops his forehead down onto Jeremiah’s shoulder. Behind him Jerome’s chest stretches along his back and he presses a kiss into Bruce’s hair.

“Try to remember us,” Jerome breathes. “If anyone can, it’s you.”

Bruce is absolutely going to remember them. There’s no way they’re going to fade from his memories. How would he ever be able to forget? He couldn’t, not even if he wanted to.

And he doesn’t want to. He’d much rather forget all the times as of late that he’s felt isolated and alone even while surrounded by people. Maybe, if he stayed with them, he would forget the numbing sensation that had been eating him up from the inside ever since—

“Will you let us keep you, Bruce?” Jeremiah rocks up into him, steady and firm. Jerome’s fingers trace irregular patterns against his hip. Bruce almost feels as if he belongs here, even though he certainly doesn’t. “We’ve proven that you’re ours by now, haven’t we? We’ve proven that you don’t need anyone else.”

~~No.~~

No one else made him feel like this. ~~No one else ever could.~~

“Yeah,” he croaks. Around him the twins go still, as if they can’t quite believe it. Bruce can hardly believe he’s said it either, and he doesn’t want to think too hard about how it feels less like a white lie meant to comfort them before they depart and more like an undoubtable truth. He cannot be kept by anybody, but if he could… “You’ve proven it.”

Jeremiah inhales sharply. Jerome’s breath rushes out from between his teeth in a hiss. 

Neither of them are laughing, which makes Bruce feel a little better about his acquiescence. If they laughed at him now he’d take it right back.

“You’ve proven it,” he repeats, but he doesn’t say ‘I’m yours’ or ‘you can keep me’.

Maybe he’s scared that those would sound like truths, too. 

The cold tips of Jerome’s fingers drag back to skim teasingly close to where Bruce is stretched open. Jeremiah rolls his hips with increasing force, and his arms lock tightly around him. 

Oh God, Bruce has gotten them all worked up. He should have known. He’s going to be aching for days after this. 

He won’t feel lonely for days after this. 

There is a hazy gratification to their attentions now; less teeth and nails, less blood and bruises. He’s worn out, too drained to do much more than take without returning anything back. If he does move at all it’s instinctive, his body responding without his mind thinking it through. He’s lost in a daze, and least until one of Jerome’s ever-moving fingers actually starts pushing in alongside Jeremiah’s cock.

He jolts; back arching, legs clamping. A pressure low in his belly—verging on familiar but not entirely—builds up at the sensation. They’re both inside of him, fuck, they’re both inside when not that long ago two of Jerome’s fingers had felt like too much. If Bruce could take this, what else could he handle? 

Jeremiah thrusts up into him again and again. Bruce curls in on himself as some terrible, embarrassing noise wells up in his throat. Jerome kisses the back of his neck, such a seemingly innocent action compared to the vulgar and incessant movement of his finger. Bruce’s ears are ringing. He’s not hard, but he’s burning up all over.

Jeremiah’s pelvis settles right against him and he clamps around Bruce hard as he reaches his climax. Jerome presses his weight against Bruce’s back, finger thrusting into him as deeply as possible. Bruce is ensnared between them—

They’re hissing promises under their breath, they’re telling him how good he’s been, their words start slurring together.

—and he’s stretched wide open around them both. Both, both, both, loops in his head. He feels the muscles in his lower body become tense, feels the both of them moan into his ear as he clenches around them. He’s wet everywhere; sweat and spit and tears and cum. He feels so good that he thinks he’s actually coming again.

He doesn’t understand what they’re saying anymore. His body goes tense again as his temples pulse with a sudden headache. He grits his teeth.

They stop talking. The pain abates.

It’s over. 

He falls back against Jerome’s chest, feeling boneless. His breaths are as weak as he himself is in the moment, quick shallow things ~~as if he’s in the middle of another nightmare~~ that do little to help him recover.

Jeremiah kisses his slack mouth, Jerome kisses the skin behind his ear. Bruce cannot lean into or away from either. He wonders, unnerved and feeling concerningly detached from his body, if he’s about to pass out. He wonders what he would find them doing to him when he woke up afterwards. Running their ~~claws~~ fingers through his hair, or something much, much more invasive? His breath catches in his throat. Their cool bodies somehow feel stifling hot. Branding. He needs to run—

“There, there,” Jerome whispers against his ear. He sounds as if he’s actually attempting—though failing—to be soothing. “No need to panic any more, darlin’. We don’t want your heart giving out on you.” He wraps his arms loosely around Bruce’s waist and shifts. Bruce’s head lolls back onto his shoulder. “Such a delicate thing,” he remarks lowly, as if he doesn’t mean for Bruce to overhear, and he presses a kiss to the side of Bruce’s throat. 

“We’ll take care of you, sweetheart,” Jeremiah tells him, stroking cold fingers up and down the curve of Bruce’s back. “We know how. We learned how. We did just for you.”

Bruce shuts his eyes, lick his lips, attempts to compose himself. 

~~They learnt because they want to keep him.~~

Jeremiah drags his tongue against one of the tear-tracks staining Bruce’s cheeks. It’s such a _them_ thing to do that Bruce feels his lips twitch; the halting start of a smile.

“C’mon.” Jerome shifts behind him, starting to pull Bruce off of Jeremiah’s lap. Bruce can feel viscous fluid seep out of him as he moves, and his cheeks burn.

He makes a low, raspy sound deep in his throat. He doesn’t want to move. He’s an absolute mess.

Jerome chuckles. “C’mon,” he says again. “We’ll take care of everything."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are! What a fun little project this has been for me. I feel like this addition makes chapter 4 of Mouthwatering unintentionally funny. They had plans, Bruce. _Sexy plans_. But you weren't _there_. I like how it fits in overall, though. Bruce never drew their blood in this so that keeps their fight in chapter 6 significant, which I am all about, so there's some cohesion even though I never really intended for things to go quite this far, haha. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, and kudos-ing, and commenting. I really loved delving back into this AU, and I'm very happy that it's been enjoyed. <3
> 
> xoxo

Hot water soothing his muscles and stinging his cuts. Hands washing his hair. Hands rubbing his shoulders and back. Whispers that he can’t really hear over the rush of water, but which sound affectionate. 

Fingers gently trailing over his closed eyes. 

Fingers softly tracing the edges of the bruise on his jaw.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he starts to feel connected to his body again. His thoughts stop aimlessly cycling and the world stops trying to jerk out from under his feet.

Even with his eyes closed he can tell that every light in the bathroom is on. The brightness bleeds through the thin skin of his eyelids, and it soothes any remaining unease inside of him.

He is being watched. Because they are watching him.

There are no deep shadows in here for ghosts ~~or other monsters~~ to hide away inside of. 

Nothing can get to him while he’s between them. ~~They’d rip apart anything that dared to try.~~

A hand slicks his hair out of his face. A hand traces the slope of his collarbones up to his shoulder. It’s like the cab ride home, like their trek through the house. Once one of them starts touching him the other is sure to follow, and Bruce doesn’t think they’ve actually stopped touching him at all since they all but carried him out of his bed. He is never not being touched. He is never left alone.

He likes it. 

His knees are liable to give out at any moment but at least if they do he won’t crack his head open in the shower, because there’s no way either of them will let him fall. Their bodies are warm and slick from the water as they bracket him. He supposes that it’s good to know that they are capable of less intense displays of fondness and desire. Their subdued manner makes him feel—

~~Like they really do mean to keep him. Like it’s not just something that they say but something that they mean.~~

—calm, especially in the wake of what he had been feeling at the end; overpowered by a need to ~~run~~ remove himself from between them so that he could catch his breath and think straight again.

That had been… A lot to process. 

They had made him feel as though he were the only thing in the world worth paying attention to. 

The center of their universe, or something like it. 

The water stops and the door opens. The rush of cold air intruding on the warm humidity makes him shiver, and his teeth start to chatter. Hands guide him out. Wrap him in towels. Dry him off. 

Gently, gently, as if they really do think that they can break him.

~~They absolutely can.~~

Though if they managed not to break Bruce as they were having sex—so much intensity focused directly on him, almost too much to withstand but maybe exactly what he needed—Bruce cannot believe that they’d be capable of it at any other time. 

There are even more kisses as he’s lead back to his bed. They don’t bother helping him into his pajamas, and frankly Bruce doesn’t care enough to mention it. They draw back his blankets and Bruce has only the briefest moment of wondering if he’s going to end up sleeping in a wet spot before he decides he’s way too exhausted to care. 

The blankets are pulled over top of him. He’s finally warm again. 

“Think of us,” one whispers against his mouth. 

“There’s something we have to do before we go to sleep.”

“Next time we won’t leave you lonely for so long.”

Bruce groans, far too tired for their oddities and their riddles. There is a deep-seated ache permeating over his entire body, but there is satisfaction, too. He feels like he could sleep for a week. He feels like he’s so tired that his mind will be incapable of conjuring nightmares. Maybe he should be selfish more often, if it results in him actually getting some decent rest.

“Do you want my number,” he murmurs, not bothering to open his eyes. “You can call me sometime. We’ll do this again. Just—I just have to recover from this time, first.”

Stars above, he’s sore. He’s going to have to hide away in his house for half a week just so that nobody asks him any questions about why he looks like he got in a fight with a bunch of wild animals. He’ll touch the marks, and think of them, and maybe the lonely ache in his chest will ease.

“We’ll find you,” one promises. The lips that press against Bruce’s face are irregular and raised.

“We’ll find you,” the other repeats. “We’ll take you properly next time. Mark you as ours.”

Bruce uses a hand to try and bat them away. Properly. As if there was anything proper about this in the first place. He can’t believe them, except he totally can. 

They laugh at him. One of them catches his hand in theirs and presses a kiss to his knuckles.

Bruce manages the strength to open one eye to look at them. They look flush, full of life.

_Satiated._

He lets his eye fall shut.

“Find me, then,” he graciously ~~foolishly~~ permits. “Make sure you take everything with you, the door will lock automatically on your way out.” And he is not leaving this bed for as long as he can manage. 

They kiss him again. His hands and his wrists. They really do never seem to get sick of it.

In the back of his mind Bruce thinks that he could get used to it. 

“Go to sleep,” one of them bids.

Bruce is already halfway there. He’s fully under before they even leave the room.

When he wakes up the sun is fully risen, and he is alone, and he remembers ~~because enough time hasn’t elapsed for him to start forgetting~~ because it will be impossible to forget, especially with the way that he can see the traces of themselves that they’d left upon him.

It makes him feel warm. It makes him feel wanted. It makes his heart thrum pleasantly in his chest.

He dodges calls and texts from Grace and Tommy for two days until he worries that refusing all of their invitations so suddenly will make them come and find him and force him out. He doesn’t quite feel up to it, but he prepares himself for another night at a club anyway. It’s not as if he has anything else to do.

Drinking and dancing while thinking of them. Wishing that their paths would cross again soon.

~~Knowing that their paths will cross again, eventually.~~

The morning of the third day he’s nearly murdered; left for dead in his own home by Ivy Pepper.

As he is dying he sees—

He sees a shadowy figure enshrouded by bats. He speaks to a person—or is it a person?—who was born in Crime Alley on the night that his parents were murdered. He comes to realize that the living shadow is a reflection of himself.

He sees, as his body is slowly shutting down, his future.

And when he is brought back from the brink of death there is one person who he wants to speak with above all others, and trying to reach out to Alfred is just as painful as it is necessary. He’d been hurting, but he’d only made it worse for himself by pushing Alfred away. He’d damaged his relationship with the only family he had left, and he needed to try and fix it. Try and make things right again. It can’t go back to the way that it was, because Bruce isn’t the same as he used to be, but if he tries hard enough maybe Alfred will come home, with Bruce, where he still belongs and will always belong. 

His fixation upon mending the rift between them temporarily leaves him unaware of Gotham’s most recent tale of grim news.

Three people ripped apart as if by wild animals. 

If he’d been paying attention he might have come to realize that it was those same people who he’d fought—who had bruised him, made him bleed, made him hurt—before being found by Jerome and Jeremiah. 

If he’d been paying attention he might have felt a sickening uncertainty about how such a thing could possibly be a coincidence in a city where very few terrible occurrences came about purely by chance.


End file.
